In the Grey of Dawn
by luckwouldhaveit
Summary: Victor has been acquitted of Henry's murder and has returned to Geneva to be with his family. Arriving at the Frankenstein estate to mourn with them is Chandelle Moreau, a French cousin of Victor's, who becomes his bitter creation's next target.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note to Readers:_

The scientific impossibility of these things was not of consequence in Mary Shelley's text, nor will it be in mine. The setting of the original is within the eighteenth century, & I do my best to stick as faithfully to that as possible, but you might notice some anachronistic references (referencing literature that was in vogue in the 1600s instead of the 1700s, for example), & I apologize in advance for that. Lastly, if you enjoy this story, you will also enjoy my story _Fantôme_ —the two have a very great deal in common. Thank you for reading & I hope you enjoy it.

…

 **In the Grey of Dawn**

…

I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.

— _Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus_ , by Mary Shelley

…

Chapter 1

 **M** y uncle's house was just as I remembered it from summers spent on its grounds before I left for education in London, though the overcast skies cast the manor into gloomy shadow. Memories drifted through my mind like the morning fog, pricking sharper as I neared the open gate. A tarnished silver plaque read _Frankenstein_.

The stones crunched underfoot as I passed through with my suitcases, the noise louder than usual in the stillness. The back of my neck prickled. It was too easy to imagine in the gloom that somehow the grief of the home's residents had permeated its grounds. It was as if the manor had taken on a half-life. How different it appeared from the rosy sun-dappled summers of my childhood…

I entered my uncle's house and the servants took care of the cases in my hands. I asked after the family and was directed to an open-windowed parlor where my relatives were breakfasting. I was received with a sorrowful warmth. Uncle had written to inform me of the grievous events of the past months—the deaths of first my aunt from the fever, the baby William murdered, and now a man named Henry Clerval dead as well. He wrote to say that my cousin Victor was wretched with grief and had almost been convicted of Clerval's murder. Fortunately he had been acquitted, and he had left Ireland to return to Geneva and his family here.

Ernest was the first to stand and receive me, and through we had not seen each other in four years, my young cousin knew me immediately and embraced me.

"I came as soon as I could upon receiving your letter, Uncle," I said when Ernest released me, who was unable to speak but for the tears that ran quietly down his handsome face. French was my native tongue, and despite my long absence, it flowed like a ballet from my lips. "I'm so sorry it could not have been sooner. I can hardly believe that the little one…and then Justine…"

Uncle Alphonse put his hands on my shoulders, his face twisted into an almost-unrecognizable mix of emotion. It seemed as if he tried for speech several times before finally saying in his deep voice, "How well you've grown, Chandelle. You bring brightness into this sad house. It does me good to see you again."

He stepped aside and I looked past him at the woman now rising from her seat.

"Elizabeth," I breathed, a wondering smile spreading across my face.

Elizabeth and I had been as sisters when we were young as neither of us had had sisters of our own. I had been holding her in my head as a little girl in a soft blue dress playing dolls with me in Aunt Caroline's drawing room. She was a woman now, with grace in her movements and a softness to her lovely features. Her blonde angel's hair cascaded in soft rivulets past her shoulders, and the knowledge and years in her lash-framed eyes completed her. The mark of her grief was upon her, also, however; she looked pale and was without the vivacity I had known in her as a child. I realized as I had not as a young girl how like opposites we were in our appearance—my hair was rich chocolate brown, and my eyes dark as well, where she was fair as a saint. We were like negatives of one another. I wondered if I looked as much changed as she in her eyes—as much a woman as she.

We moved toward one another, taking each other's hands and pressing our lips to one another's cheeks, tears shining in our eyes.

"You look remarkable, Chandelle," she murmured. "I would say I hardly recognized you, but there was no way I could not. You are still my dear cousin."

"I've missed you, Elizabeth. You look like an angel. How is Victor?" He was not at their breakfast table. "Where does he keep himself?"

Elizabeth did not answer right away, looking away as her lips thinned, pressed together, and her delicate brows came together in pain.

"He keeps to his room," Uncle answered me. "He suffers from spells of fever and grief." Uncle's eyes were dark with worry and I sensed something more behind his words. Victor must indeed be suffering.

"Shall I go to him? Would it do him good?" I asked. These words were greeted with quiet from all and my eyebrows rose. "Is he so bad?" I asked quietly.

"He arrived only a few days ago from Ireland," Elizabeth said. "He is…he's very shaken still."

"Elizabeth can soothe him, but none of the rest of us," Ernest added. "Often it seems as though he wishes to speak with us about something pressing, but always holds himself back… We wouldn't wish for you to see him in such a state—neither would he, I'm sure."

"Fits do not frighten me," I replied. "Don't forget I have a stiffer backbone than both of you." I pointed between Ernest and Elizabeth with a small smile, attempting to lighten things. "I should see my cousin."

"I'll take you to him," Ernest offered, nodding in acceptance, and I followed him out of the room and through the house. We went up the staircase and through the hall until he stopped at a dark wood door.

Ernest knocked gently.

"Victor, brother," he called quietly, "cousin Chandelle has come from London just now and I'm sure you wish to see her."

"Chandelle?" came a voice from inside. My eyebrows shot up at the voice. I did not recognize it as Victor's. It was too low, too forced. "Little Chandelle from London?"

"Yes," I called, sounding far gayer than I felt. "Now open up, Victor—I have not laid eyes on your haughty mug in four years and you shall not keep me waiting!" I grinned as the door was wrenched open and I forced that smile not to falter as I beheld the man's sunken frame, his sallow, creased countenance, and the wild, dark desolation in his eyes. He looked ten—twenty!—years older than I remembered him. He was barely the tall, clever, arrogant elder cousin I remembered underneath all the changes. He looked like a crazed old man—like someone off the _streets_ , if not for the fine clothes hanging off his thin body.

"Chandelle!" he exclaimed, his eyes traveling over me in surprise and wonder. "From London. Well there you are…aren't you…" He twitched oddly and then pulled me into an embrace. The embrace was well-meant, but there was a desperation in his movements and a dank smell on him that made the gesture an uncomfortable one.

"Come in…come in and talk for a while," he said, guiding me into the dark room. Ernest lingered apprehensively in the doorframe for a moment, and then left us.

Victor shut the door without seeing it. His eyes darted to the window in a strange fashion and I saw by the dim light in that moment how feverish he truly did seem. Uneasiness fluttered inside me. Something was deeply wrong. Victor was unwell, but it was not fever of the body he suffered from, but fever of the mind. I had seen as much in that roll of his eyes by the light of the window.

"Victor," I began, swallowing my trepidation as I pulled up a chair near him and he sat on his bed. I tried for a warm smile. "You look as if you've been run over by a carriage and starved."

Victor blinked at me and then a grin split open his face and he laughed. His laugh was harsh and choppy, but it was genuine.

"Chandelle!" he cried, shaking his head. "Ah, I'm glad you're come back. Dear Elizabeth's gentleness and your crassness make a healthy couple."

"I am not crass!" I argued. "Blunt, perhaps, but not crass, cousin. You must not begin with insults now; we are not children anymore."

"Yes. Why, you have been in school for four years now and no doubt can charm when it suits you." He smirked at me, but instead of being insulted by his cheek, I winked and replied, "Even the devil can cite scripture for his purpose."

Victor smirked. "And quoting Shakespeare…"

I waved him off. "I spend too much time with self-education and too little time trying to find a husband, at least that's what the old bats tell me."

Victor laughed. "Well, be careful. You don't want to be a Katherina and scare them all off."

"Oh, no," I countered easily, "like Katherina, I have the presence of mind to allow myself to be tamed if a Petruchio comes along."

Victor grinned. I was showing off, of course, but I rarely got the opportunity. There were more pressing matters, however, so I was serious once again, leaning toward my cousin to look him in his sunken eyes.

"Victor," I said firmly, taking one of his clammy hands in both of mine. "Victory, truly. You must not torture yourself. These loses were not your fault."

Fateful words.

Immediately I wished to take them back. My cousin's eyes bulged and his body seemed to spasm. He wrenched his hand out of mine and clutched his head with both his hands, shaking his head back and forth like a dog.

"My fault, my fault, all my fault," he groaned. He gave an anguished smothered cry. I took a hold of his shoulder, at a loss for what else to do.

"Victor," I soothed quickly. "Victor! William and Henry were _murdered_ —you could not have foreseen this! We—" But my every word seemed to be making him worse. Victor lapsed into a fit. Not of fever, as they had made it sound like downstairs, but of _madness_. His eyes strained, rolled and stared without seeing and his hands clutched at anything within reach. I tried to calm him in vain, frightened he would harm himself, when suddenly he collapsed down onto his bed, still and trembling. He stared at me, his eyes enormous and filled with anguish and self-loathing.

"What I've done, what I've done…" he groaned. He said it with such certainty, such self-loathing, that I found myself asking in a low voice, "What is it you have done, Victor?"

Victor's fevered eyes fixed themselves on mine and his mouth trembled with the weight of his confession. His unhinged eyes found so little familiar in me it seemed as if he were talking to himself.

"I _created_ him," rasped the madman in my cousin's weary skin. "The one who murdered Willie and Henry… It was him… _Him_ … My monster. My travesty. My fault…all my fault…"

I did not blink as I demanded of Victor in a low voice, "Your monster? What are you talking of?" Trepidation trickled cold through my limbs. I had read in medical publications of men and women consumed by the belief that they were two separate people… What if Victor…? The idea was too terrible to imagine.

Victor's rigid body trembled, but his beliefs groaned forth from his pallid lips. "I did what no one before had yet done. I—Victor Frankenstein—brought animation back into the inanimate. I made what was once dead alive…I created a being… A monster up out of hell…and he has been taking his revenge upon me since…" He clutched my arm suddenly. "He doesn't know you—he doesn't know—you can get away—"

"Hush," I countered quietly, trying my best to keep my composure. My voice was shaking slightly. "Tell me how you did this, Victor. How did you make the dead live?" Even though my rational mind did not believe him, something about the very real fear in the back of his dark eyes made me ask.

And in a crazed flood, the entirety of the grisly story poured forth in a coarse yet supplicating manner as if he were half begging for forgiveness and half damning himself.

I remained silent as I listened to the tale. At times my hands shook, and I shoved them beneath my thighs to steady them. It seemed impossible to believe, but details, names and facts flowed forth in a way that spoke of truth, no matter how ghastly. That my own cousin would dig up graves—or imagine himself digging up graves—and work by candlelight stitching a new being from pieces of the deceased… It was too much to even envision. It could not have been so…

Then, when he began to paraphrase the creature's conversations with him, I grew fascinated despite myself. Victor railed against his so-called creation, calling him nothing more than a demon—an unholy animal—yet this 'animal' he either created or imagined was articulate and made eloquent arguments. Whether or not it was merely ravings, I was fascinated by the character of the man Victor seemed so deeply convinced he had created. The monster spoke of in innocent beginning, of a doomed quest for acceptance. Of learning language alone and in secret. Of heartache and rejection.

My mind would not accept Victor's conceit, however. Never had death or human mortality been denied. Never had children been born but by conception. Perhaps Victor's enemy was a real man, and his guilt had caused him to conflate things in his mind—a reaction of a snapped mind to grief. Another possibility…of this 'monster' being a separate personality of Victor's…Victor's alter-ego…this I hoped with all my heart was not the truth.

The day was as dark and grey as the morning had been, and the room did not lighten as an hour passed, but Victor grew more and more noticeably weary.

"I was acquitted…acquitted when I should have died for my sins…and my father took me back here to Geneva…and Elizabeth. Elizabeth… She must not know…must not…what I've done…"

"This creature," I said, "where…do you think he is now?" _This man Victor is convinced is responsible for the murders…could he be still stalking Victor? Or if he is Victor himself…might he hurt someone else?_

"Anywhere." He voice was only a rasp. "Anywhere."

"Do you think he will hurt more of us? Uncle? Ernest?"

Victor's eyes squeezed shut and moaned, tortured. "You should leave…before he finds you…he cannot know…he would hurt you…because you are a woman and I would not make him a woman…"

"Hush, cousin," I soothed. "I shall be fine." _He is mad. He is mad and that is all. There can be no monster._ And yet then who was responsible for these deaths? I suddenly remember that Victor had been with Henry Clerval, but not with the baby William. He could not have been responsible for both deaths.

Victor's strength was ebbing. He grasped my arm tightly, looked me in the eyes and exclaimed, "He would hurt you if he could. You are beautiful and he is hideous. And you are everything he cannot have."

The same was true of Elizabeth, but pointing this out would only upset Victor further.

"Victor," I said firmly and leaning in close, "have you spoken of this—told this story—to anyone else? Your father?"

"No," he groaned, tears welling in his eyes. "They can never be told… No… Then they would know…then they would see…my evil…you…little Chandelle in London…little…" And his eyes rolled back into his head and Victor collapsed limp onto the pillow in unconsciousness.

With a great weight in my heart, I quitted the room.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

…

 **I** told none of my relatives what had transpired between Victor and myself that gloomy morning, but the weight of the knowledge left me cold and somber. I knew they needed to be told the extent of his madness, and soon, but I could not yet find it in me to cause more grief on top of all my family was already suffering. The others assumed it was Victor's ill health and the sadness in the house that had brought down my spirits, and did not inquire, but I knew I would have to be honest with them soon.

When Victor woke later in the afternoon, he did not seem to recall divulging his darkest secrets to me, else he believed it to be a dream or a figment of his feverish mind, and for that I was grateful. He only left his bedroom for meals and was still feverish. The doctor apparently had looked at him only yesterday and given him medications, but my uncle was considering asking him to come back again tomorrow.

The unknown plagued my thoughts. What if some of what Victor believed was true and the revenge of this man who was for whatever reason Victor's enemy was not yet complete? What if he plotted to hurt more people? All had been quiet at the manor, but I eyed windows and doors more warily than was natural now.

We walked, Elizabeth and I, in the warm sunshine of late afternoon along a pathway that cut through the gardens and grounds of the Frankenstein estate with Victor directly ahead of us. His demeanor had improved slightly since the announcement of the wedding, and I thought perhaps his newfound gaiety was on the most part a show to soothe Elizabeth. I could see the artifice in it even if she could not. The two had been destined for one other since Elizabeth had come into the family, but the union that to me had always been a source of light now smelled of tragedy. I knew I needed to speak to my uncle about Victor. It no longer seemed as if he could be anyone's husband.

A small creature rustled the brush beside us and I watched as Victor's hand twitched compulsively toward where I knew him to be concealing a pistol beneath his jacket. Elizabeth remained unaware of her fiancé's paranoia, and indeed, it did seem absurdly unnecessary in the rosy light of sunset. Elizabeth and I seated ourselves on a stone bench to watch the colors in the west through a break in the trees as Victor stood looking on.

Elizabeth and I chatted and laughed easily as the light faded and Victor grew noticeably more agitated with the coming of the evening. He tried to coerce Elizabeth to retire to the house, and on the third time he tried thus, she remarked smilingly, "Are you afraid of the dark, my love?"

Victor's forced smile was thin. "Of all that hides within it, I am," he replied in a low voice.

Elizabeth looked at him with some confusion but did not let it trouble her for long. We remained outside until the light had most decidedly faded from the west, and then we allowed Victor to take our arms and accompany us back to the house. As we reached it, I gently dropped Victor's arm and parted ways with them toward the dark garden.

"Go on ahead," I assured them. "I have not been in the garden in the evening since I was small and since it is such a warm night, I should like to stay out in it awhile."

Elizabeth smiled and nodded, but Victor gave me a pained expression. He was not about to let his betrothed remain out in the dark and open for a minute longer, however, and left me as he took Elizabeth inside. I walked quietly around the sweet-smelling place, unafraid for all Victor's anxiety. The evening was flawless; it was not the kind of evening that worked evil. In a few minutes I heard Victor's hurried steps on the stone, and as I was admiring a stone sculpture that in my childhood had seemed much larger, he came around the pathway and grasped my arm quite tightly.

"Victor!" I admonished, trying to pull from him as he forcefully moved me down the path. "For God's sake, let go of me!"

"It is foolish for a young woman to be out alone at night," he growled.

I had had quite enough of his manhandling and wrenched myself resolutely away from him with a scowl. "I have been spending summer evenings in this garden ever since I was a child. Don't you dare tell me I am for some reason _not allowed_ to do so anymore. The gates are closed, and there is no one around to fear."

Victor attempted to collect himself as his dark eyes darted over our surroundings. His paranoia was now beginning to affect me. I felt a prickling of fear and wanted to look over my shoulder but did not give in to the urge.

Suddenly there were tears on Victor's cheeks and he looked much more like the cousin I remembered. He leaned in very close to me and whispered, taking my hands in his and looking into my eyes, "Please, Chandelle. I know you don't understand, but for my sake and peace of mind, please do not wander alone—especially in the dark. Willie was murdered in the woods on this property. You are loved, Chandelle, and you must be cautious. I beg you."

He leaned back and I lowered my eyes from his and nodded. Victor took my arm gently. When we reached the back patio door, I glanced back at the quiet garden and my blood froze in my veins. I stumbled in the doorway and inhaled sharply.

A silhouette, darker than the trees and bushes around it and larger than any man should be, was standing behind the stone sculpture I had been gazing at just a minute ago. As Victor obliviously pulled me by the arm into the warm light of the safety inside the manor and bolted the door, I felt its dark eyes on us.

…

It was difficult not to be afraid.

It was difficult not be as paranoid now as Victor was. Had I imagined the silhouette? _The evidences of my senses are all I have, and if I disbelieve them, I am as much a fool as any madman._ The silhouette had been larger than any natural man. I was not one to believe in demons walking the earth, but…I had to believe in the evidence of my eyes.

This _monster_ was the embodiment of all that was hanging over this house: fear, death, the threat off loss. In my mind he now haunted the estate like a guillotine hanging in the air.

That night during dinner, my spooked imagination ran rampant and I imagined this corpse monster leaping out through doorways and hiding in wait around corners. From what I saw of his size in that moment made it difficult to trust that even the house walls could impede him. If he truly existed…if my eyes had not deceived me…we were safe nowhere. Surely he could crash in and destroy us all whenever he wished.

What was he waiting for?

After dinner I watched black rain fall down on the grounds outside as I sat on a divan beside a dark picture window in the main parlor.

I was resolved to sit my uncle down and tell him all upon the morrow.

I had no truly clear answers. Who could see into the mind of a monster? According to Victor's fevered rambling, he had spoken of human values and human feelings. He had spoken with logic and fluency, and he was tame enough to learn language, which implied patience and intelligence. _Sharp_ intelligence—to learn a language without a teacher. Could he perhaps be reasoned with? Would there be something else he could be placated with besides a female partner created in the same fashion as he? To wish for a female implied loneliness and a willingness to treat another with what can only be assumed as companionship. Could there be more to this being than Victor was allowing himself to see?

"Chandelle," came the easy, deep voice of my uncle. I turned and smiled at him as he took up an armchair across from me.

"Hello, Uncle."

"You are so solemn these days and it is very unlike you. You were always so animate. Our misfortune is behind us, my dear. Victor and Elizabeth are to be wed in little more than a month."

I forced a smile. In that moment, I wanted to tell him all. But he looked so tired. I not noticed before how many lines his face now had… His weariness stilled my tongue. Instead I murmured, "I'm very happy for them. This house needs some joy under its roof again."

"Indeed it does," Uncle agreed with a heavy sigh.

"Victor seems better," I ventured and watched my uncle's face carefully. He looked down at the ground in thought and then back up at me with an attempt at a small smile.

"Yes, he does seem so," he replied. "Although I still worry about him."

"So do I."

"Well, _ma fifille_ , we must try not to mar their joy with our anxieties. 'What's to come is still unsure, except youth's a stuff will not endure.'"

I smiled. The prose did not rhyme in French, but it attested to how learned my uncle was. " _Twelfth Night_."

"Victor mentioned you've been studying his plays. Rather unlike you."

"I'm afraid I've become terribly refined, Uncle."

He smirked. "Chandelle," he sighed gently, patting my leg as he stood. "Do not be long alone. It does not do to dwell on past miseries, and Ernest could use some company when he returns from town."

"I shall not neglect him."

"Thank you," Uncle said, nodding, and left me.

…

That night I woke with the feeling I was not alone.

It chilled my blood, but I steeled my backbone and reached to light a candle with slightly shaking fingers, almost daring the action to shed light upon the face of the living dead. But there was no one when I raised the flickering light to cast a glow into all corners of my room.

Still, the feeling that I had been watched or visited remained with me, and I could not again find sleep. The candle burned down low as I lay in bed. When it guttered out, my night vision returned, transforming blackness into grey shapes. Still sleepless, I slipped on soft shoes and a robe over my nightclothes and went downstairs to the parlor with the enormous picture window that overlooked the garden.

The night was deep and dark and I felt safe and anonymous hiding within it. An almost full moon lent shape to objects around me and a silver glow to the night outside when it broke from its clouds, but for the moment, all was darkness. I felt concealed and safe as I stood beside the glass and looked out, searching the shadows with narrowed eyes. I wanted proof. Fact. Evidence. And I wanted to prove to myself I wasn't afraid.

I wanted to look upon the face of the devil and feel no fear.

He was out there somewhere, if he existed. I steeled my backbone and stared out into the darkness as the moon appeared again and lent its pale light to the room and garden.

Behind me, in the reflection in the dark glass, a black silhouette stepped forward.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

…

 **I** whirled to face it—an instinctive survival reflex—and I breathed out a choppy gasp, though there was not enough breath in my chest for a scream. I could not seem to draw in enough. My blood pounded blindingly in my ears, and my hands shook with sudden strength and energy. My bladder had suddenly turned unreliable and cold, and I was too frightened to move lest I draw the demon's ire.

The huge black shadow had twitched, and I imagined he would have smothered my scream had it come. It was larger than any man had a right to be, though it kept to the blackest part of the room and I could not see its features or form. My mind imagined red eyes and the fangs of a lion.

I quaked, but I fought for control of myself. I would meet death with a calm expression if I possibly could.

I took a breath and said in a high, hoarse voice, "You're come to kill me, then."

There was a beat of silence, and the cloaked and hooded darkness replied in a deep, cold voice, "Yes." It was a pitiless voice. But a human one. That of a man and a murderer. "You know of me, it seems."

"I know of you," I agreed in a whisper. My voice trembled. My heart was still pounding madly; my uncertain bladder quivered.

"I did not think he would tell. Especially his family. He would not wish to be seen a _monster_." The fiend spat the word with loathing.

I was silent, and then whispered, "You murdered William. A-and Victor's friend—Clerval."

"Yes," he growled, a deep and bitter darkness in his voice, "and I will stop your breath next, little one."

"To—to punish Victor? Is that why you are doing this?"

I needed to know why I was to die.

"Your cousin authored his own destruction."

"No," I whispered. "Victor created you, but you are the one making the choices now. You have authored yourself evil."

The huge silhouette shook with anger. The floorboards trembled and so did I.

He growled, "If Adam was made a sinner, God is responsible for that. He sinned and was punished for being what he was created to be."

I had never considered this before.

If indeed God was _truly_ omniscient, it would indeed be his fault if his creation sinned. Suddenly I understood Adam's lament in _Paradise Lost_ was not only questioning why his God created him but also…blaming him. I realized where the emphasis should be placed in the sentences. I murmured the lines. "'Did I _request_ thee, Maker, from my clay to mold me man? Did I _solicit_ thee from darkness to promote me?'"

The monster standing in shadow was silent. Eerily silent—even his breathing had stopped. "The very lines, lambkin," he murmured. His voice had changed very slightly.

I murmured, "Perhaps no one, not even a god, could be omniscient when it comes to men. We are too full of chaos. God could not predict the results of his creation any more than Victor could predict what sort of man his blind efforts would bring forth. You—"

"I am no man." His voice was low and hostile again. "You know the truth of me—you _know_ what I am, and I am no _man_."

"I know the truth, and I hear you now, and you are a man."

A snarl rippled from the darkness and the shadow stalked forward. "Tell me _again_ , child. _Tell me again_ that you believe me human." The monster stepped menacingly into the moonlight before me.

Bile rose in my throat and my hands flew to my mouth to contain it. My bladder let go what little it contained to my mortification, and I felt the hot wetness run down my inner thigh. A whimpered gasp—smothered by my hands—sounded in my mouth. I sucked in a breath and could not help my involuntary response of scrambling away. I jolted backwards and into the divan, losing my footing, and fell heavily into a sitting position on the upholstery. Even with it to my back, I pushed back tight against it, my legs working, my hands still clasped tight to my gasping mouth.

The monster pursued me slowly; it needed only to take two steps, as I had not been able to flee far. A thousand pleas and screams flew through my mind, but my own hands smothering my mouth and fear's paralysis stymied them. I couldn't think. His yellow eyes were physically nauseating to behold, in the way that the unnaturalness of the eyes of a spider are nauseating. The moonlight threw the planes and mountain ranges of his scarred, unholy, stolen skin into sharp relief and shadow. He was Death. He was the Devil. He was weeping.

Even as his features held such murder and malice, in his twisted expression was also misery of the acutest kind.

' _I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe…'_ His words, relayed to me by Victor, filled my mind. _'I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel!'_

I moved my hands from my mouth in a rush, pressed them over my eyes, casting my world into darkness, and I whispered, "I believe you human."

My hands and lips trembled. There was deep silence in the room. All was darkness behind my closed eyelids and trembling hands. "I… If I cannot see you," I continued in a quaver, "I believe you h-human. I know the truth of you. I—I know of Victor's madness…and his weakness. You argued to him that in the beginning y-you were innocent, even if Victor did not himself believe it… Isn't it so?"

"It is no longer so," he whispered. His voice had grown thicker. "You are a clever little thing. Do you say the things you know I wish to hear to save your skin? Little monster…"

"Victor is the only monster in this house," I whispered. I knew now that that was true. Even if this creature killed me, in truth Victor would be responsible. Victor and his brilliance and blindness would be my murderer.

"So clever. Such a conniving girl. _Look at me_ ," he commanded. His voice was harder. "I wish to see that disgust in your eyes again as I kill you."

"You will not have that wish." I pulled my hands from my face and scowled into his cursed face. My nausea and the shock of him had passed. I knew what he was from his creation until this very moment, and I had heard his words and struggles relayed to me. When I looked at him, I saw that truth.

He was kneeling on one knee hulking before me as I sat pressed against the back of the divan, his huge, dangerous body too sickeningly close. His dead skin…stolen blood… I grimaced, but did not look away from his eyes. I took a last measure of pride in being able to look Death in the eyes.

The moonlight cut in strips across his face, and in that silver light I could see a sudden wavering there. The moisture in the yellow eyes from a moment ago now shivered. His dark lips twitched. I took another breath, my heart stuttering. I did not know how long I could keep on a brave face. My body was wracked with the energy of mortal terror and extreme weariness at the same time. My arms trembled.

"Did Victor tell you all?" he asked. I could not decipher the emotion in his voice. "I cannot believe he would have admitted his crimes. Did he truly?"

"He barely knows me," I whispered. "I have been away since I was a child. He…he is going mad. His mind is loosening. I don't think he realized what he was doing when I told me. I am a stranger to him. It must have felt safe to him to tell his story to a stranger."

The creature gazed at me as I spoke, tracing the lines of my mouth and eyes with its gaze as if my face held answers to questions long gone unresolved. Small changes seemed to be working in his face. I watched the softening of subtle lines, watched as a sort of helplessness weakened his features.

"Do you realize what you are doing?" he whispered. "Looking into my face and speaking to me without hatred in your eyes? Do you know you are the only creature to ever look into my eyes and speak this way?"

I had no response. I trembled.

I tried to decide what I truly _did_ feel as I looked into his countenance. His uncanny yellow eyes, unnatural size, and mismatched skin dominated his appearance. Beneath those frightful eyes were dark circles of purple, and there was a section toward the back of his head that bulged slightly. His long black hair was greasy and unkempt, cut crudely at the end with perhaps a knife, and he was weathered and tragic. But I could see now as I had not before that he was handsomeness of form, feature, and proportion utterly undone by that skin and those eyes. I could see now that Victor had worked to try and make him beautiful.

A cruel farce.

His eyes flickered over my face, reading my eyes and my expression. The weakness that had begun to soften his features continued, as if a wave were receding. His shoulders dropped slightly. His eyebrows loosened. He gazed at me with shivering eyes.

"Do you hate me?" he whispered. "Do you want to run from me?"

"I—I don't know," I answered honestly. "I am afraid—and—and exhausted—and I may faint." I was starting to feel the after-effects of my rush of petrified energy.

He reached to the left for a pillow, his arm's movement swift as a snake's strike, and suddenly he was wedging a pillow beneath my back. "Relax onto this. Don't hold yourself so tightly."

"Pardon me?" My head was swimming. "Was your intent not a moment ago to strangle me?"

The ghost of a smile passed over the corner of his mouth. He reached the fingers of one hand toward my face. I flinched from it, and he pulled his hand back slowly, his smile fading.

"Of course you want me to leave…that is understandable…but…" He seemed to struggle with the words. "But…do you hate me? Do you wish I were dead?"

"I wish Victor had not been so blind. That is what I wish."

Any remaining anger and hatred in his face crumpled in on itself, leaving pure vulnerability. His shoulders slumped fully as if there were a weight inside him that had become too heavy to bear. There was a supplication in his eyes, like that of a kicked dog hoping for shelter. To go from murderous rage to crippled supplication within moments to me made him seem as mad as his creator.

 _Do you hate me?_ If I were being truthful, there _was_ resentment and ire swirling inside me on top of the disgust. "You killed my baby cousin who I never had the chance to know," I told him.

His eyes deepened. "Yes," he murmured. "That cannot be denied. And yet…" He gazed into my eyes, looking back and forth between them slowly. I felt him tremble unexpectedly. His lips twitched, his eyes shivering again. They let lose their moisture, and tears slipped down his face. I held my breath. His rough breathing was all that could be heard in the stillness of the dark house.

The sight was an incredible one. This man was as large as a Greek god come down to earth, ugly, and unholy. Yet he knelt and wept, as if he were not a god, but in fact knelt at the feet of his god. In the shivering and dappled moonlight, I could see he wore a black cloak over a broad, bare chest and frayed pants. Scars marred his entire figure, making a ghastly mad play of shadows across his skin.

"I don't understand," I whispered.

His head was hanging. Even kneeling, his size was immense. The muscles in his arms were round and hard as rocks, the tendons like thick wires. He was so terrifying large. _He no longer wishes to kill me. Because…because I am the first to see the man in him._

"What's to be done?" I asked again. "Say something."

His tone when he at last spoke, his voice so radically different from the coldness of his tone when he had first spoken to me that I was truly amazed. "Silence is joy's perfect herald," he murmured. "If I felt less, I would be able to say more."

"I…"

He whispered quietly, "For all your beauty, you do not hate me for my ugliness…my origin. Your eyes do not see a monster. And for that…for that, angel Chandelle, I am yours until the end of reckoning." His voice trembled with the sincerity of his words and I stared at him.

Deep, anguished trepidation burned in the back of his eyes as he watched for my reaction.

It was a long moment before I had adjusted enough to the situation to reply. I then said, "You must never kill again."

"There is no more reason."

"Victor…I doubt he will ever be able to…"

"I do not care." When I was quiet, he continued, "I will be whatever you want of me. Only be kind."

I gazed at him. "Because I am the first to see the man in you?"

His eyes burned, two tortured golden spheres in their sockets. The pain in them was fierce and dark, and the joy in them as equally violent. He whispered hoarsely, "I had thought there was nothing of it in me anymore. There has not been…not for a long while. My hatred burned it all to ash. I held no more hope." His eyes squeezed shut and clenched his teeth.

"I had given up… God, of all times and places… I could have killed you. If I hadn't enjoyed speaking with you, I could have just…" He looked me fiercely in the eyes. "But I will never hurt you or frighten you again," he swore. "I will destroy any creature that dares attempt to harm you."

"What about my family? What about Victor?"

His lips thinned, but he replied, "They will have my protection as well. Because of you."

I swallowed and gazed at him, searching for dishonesty. I winced and looked away. He was so sickening to look at… So unnatural. Death walking. I forced myself to think through the haze of my weary mind. I sat up straight, slowly, and he moved back gently to allow it.

"We… We must discuss this. You." I didn't know where to begin. I folded my hands in my lap and gazed at the grandfather clock across the room, the glass face a beacon reflecting the moonlight in the darkness. "It would be unwise," I began, "to show yourself to my family." I could hear the screams already…

"Yes," he murmured, "but with one exception. I must speak with Victor once more. There is a threat I made him…that I must revoke."

"What were you going to do?" I asked quietly. "My death was only going to be part of your revenge?"

He looked away with a pained expression. "You were not originally in my plans. But I have been watching the house, watching Victor, and I saw you, him, and his fiancé… You stole my breath and the thoughts in my mind…your beauty, your smile, laugh, even your _walk_ … You were mesmerizing, and I hated you for it. You were everything I could never have, and it filled me with such despair, such fury…"

"There was something else that you had planned, then."

He did not meet my gaze, his eyes deep. "You do not want to know."

I gazed at him. "You were going to kill Elizabeth, weren't you?"

"Forgive me," he murmured.

"I love her," I said in a low, strong voice. "She is like my sister and you must never even think—"

"Never again, I swear it, Chandelle. I will protect her now. I will watch over all of them. Even Victor. For you, only for you. Because it would hurt you to lose them and I would never see you hurt again."

I looked hard into his unnatural yellow eyes and found only truth. I looked away. Suddenly I could no longer focus. My limbs felt weak. I lay my head on the back of the divan and closed my eyes. Almost losing my life had made me weak and weary as a babe.

"You're exhausted," he murmured. "You should sleep. We can talk again at another time."

"Yes," I agreed, garbling the word slightly. I pulled myself up to stand slowly, and as I did so, the creature also stood, and a warm, rock-hard arm fastened itself around my lower back to support me. I shuddered. The instinct to pull away from his unnaturalness gripped me, and I shifted away, but his arm did not release me.

"Would you allow me?" he asked quietly. "I know I frighten you, but your legs are shaking. I do not know if you can stand on your own."

My expression was drawn up in disgust. "I don't want—please, it isn't proper…" Suddenly, it seemed as if I had left all the blood in my body down on the divan; white spots impeded on my vision. The white took over, and I knew nothing more.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

…

The pale morning light filtered through the creamy curtains of the bedroom and lit it softly, creeping across the floor, my bedclothes, and finally touching my face. My eyes opened and I gazed at the window as memories came streaming back like water rushing from high ground to low. It was all so dreamlike and impossible. How vivid my nighttime imaginings were! How absurd.

I sat up, pushing the bedclothes aside, and my limbs ached in protest. Memories of standing rigid, terrified—of falling backwards down onto a divan—came back in a striking flash. I realized I was wearing a robe on top of my nightclothes. My body froze.

 _It was real._

My breaths were coming fast as I forced my mind to catch up and adjust to what must indeed be reality. I had met the creature. I had almost been his next victim. But he had found in me something that had stopped him. An acceptance. And he had turned the pathway of this life around in an instant.

I closed my eyes in confusion when I dealt with reality with the clarity of mind the morning offered.

A new addition to my bedside table caught my eye. I saw the burned out candle and a ripped off piece of parchment from a nearby book lying beside it. It had one word written on it in an unfamiliar but handsome script.

 _Tonight_.

I took a deep breath and slipped the piece of paper under the mattress on the bed. I then dressed quickly.

I found Earnest in at breakfast when I went downstairs. He stood when I entered and kissed my cheek in light spirits.

"It's a beautiful morning," he remarked, smiling and sitting down again to his light breakfast.

"It is," I agreed slowly. I could not tell him now close things had come to him waking up this sunny morning to find his cousin cold and dead on the parlor floor. But hopefully that grief would not soon again touch those in this household; unbeknownst to them all, things had been turned around in a night.

I sat down and began slowly spreading jam on a roll as the morning light illuminated the wood of the table and shone off the china in a beautiful way. I felt the skin around my eyes loosen. It was daylight. I was alive, and if vows were kept, my family was safe from the horror that had been haunting them the past months.

"Ernest," I began, "How goes your education?"

"Quite well," Ernest replied, nodding. "Having such a library here has given me an advantage, and I can always go to Father when I need explanations."

I nodded and smiled. "You are very fortunate to have a brilliant father who I am convinced knows everything." I smiled widely at the end as I pointed my porridge spoon at him and Ernest grinned.

"Did you know he is looking into purchase a house for Victor and Elizabeth near Cologny?" he asked.

"The country there is beautiful. Uncle should go through with the purchase directly."

"I believe he will."

"And the wedding is in a fortnight?"

"Yes." Ernest looked off and then observed, "Victor has been in better spirits than he was upon arriving."

"I've noticed that. I hope he continues to improve."

Ernest nodded in agreement, touching a napkin to his mouth. "We all do."

Presently Victor joined our breakfast, and Uncle and Elizabeth came not long after, and the day passed as sunny days do. Uncle and I spent some time in town and then Elizabeth, Ernest, Victor, and I took a walk through the countryside surrounding the Frankenstein estate. There was gaiety and laughter, and it seemed as through a weight had been lifted—at least to me, for I knew it had been. It was a beautiful time. I wish we could have had an artist with us to paint a picture of all of us sitting on the sunny hill among coarse purple wild flowers and strolling along paths through the hills and young trees.

Elizabeth was fatigued from the long day of roaming and retired early after dinner when we returned in the evening. Victor also left for his room while Uncle, Ernest and I retired to the large drawing room where Uncle sat at a desk and answered letters while Ernest completed some schoolwork and I took up a book and settled into a chair.

It grew late and Uncle left for bed after finishing his letters. Ernest kindly brought me a cup of hot tea before he too gathered his books and went up to bed as well. I sipped my tea and tried to keep my mind on the print before my eyes, but it soon became impossible. I waited in the warm glow of oil lamps in the drawing room for him to come.

I had almost decided to get up and go to my room when a hulking, cloaked figure appeared in the doorway. My heart beat hard, slamming against my ribs. My mind shouted alarm inside me: _danger._ His yellow demon's eyes pinned me. Suddenly I did not know why the damnable hells I had stayed here waiting for this beast. I should have been encamped in a fortress somewhere surrounded by musketry men. _This is madness._

He crossed to me and knelt gently beside my chair. As he did so, he reached up and lowered his hood with wide, quick hands. "Are you well?" he asked quietly.

I could only stare mutely, trying to recover myself. My hands gripped the edge of my chair and my book tightly, knuckles white. "I—I b-beg your pardon…" I gasped quietly, trying to excuse my lack of grace.

"I frighten you still," he murmured, understanding and his face falling. "I apologize." He moved away slightly, through still kneeling. "There is no reason you need be afraid." There was a deep sadness in his eyes. This helped calm me; it was so human, and different from his hard, impassive expression when he had first appeared in the doorway.

"I'm well. I'm well. Thank you." I made an effort not to grimace and tried not to forget my manners. "And you?"

Amusement crossed his face like a ripple. "I am…better than I ever could have believed." He was gazing at me, taking in again as he had last night every flicker of my expressions. His eyes lingered on parts of my face and most often on my eyes. He gazed at me as if I was water after months of drought. As if I was his new-born child. As if I was a newly-discovered section of the Bible.

"I apologize…" I began. "I believe I fainted last night."

"It's alright. I brought you to your room."

I had expected him to say it, but still a hot flush flared on my neck and cheeks. To be held so intimately by a man… And that it was _him_ … Imagining his flesh touching me… Again, I tried not to wince. A chill passed through me and out. His eyes ached seeing it. He looked away.

Last night he had been bare-chested beneath his huge black cloak. Tonight he seemed to have made an effort to cover himself more fully. He wore a white linen shirt beneath his fastened cloak—a shirt in a much more gentlemanly style than his pants ripped at the knees, and the two made an odd contrast. I appreciated his effort to dress in a more civilized manner, however.

"When are you planning to speak to Victor?" I whispered finally.

"Soon," he replied in a low voice.

"You must be careful. He—"

"I will be careful." His eyes returned to me.

"Are you hungry?" I did not know why I was asking. "We have food in the kitchen…"

"I've eaten." His eyes had grown tender again. The warmth there comforted me. Despite the unnaturalness of his eyes, if I looked only at them, I could see a bit of his true character. There was sincerity and affection there. Nothing to be afraid of.

"Victor's account…" I began, "it might have been missing details. I am not sure it was the entire story. Would you tell your story to me? From your own mouth?"

Warmth passed across his face. He stood and sinuously took up the armchair beside me. He barely fit in it. "I will tell you the story of my existence as I told it to Victor months ago." His voice was low, but measured and pleasing to listen to. He began, "My memories are in fits and starts at the beginning. I came to understand my body and my senses slowly, as if in a dream. But what came after I remember well."

His voice was pleasant to listen to; he had an artful and educated mastery of language. He spoke eloquently and movingly, with a delicateness of nature that was in direct contrast to his physical visage.

In a low voice, he described his escape from Victor's laboratory; the difficulties of his first few weeks struggling with hunger, cold, and exposure; and being chased out of villages and forced to learn how to live on his own in the woods. I listened as pain crept into his tone as he described a family of people who he watched in secret for many months and began to care deeply for, though at first he did not understand the emotions and sensations he felt. I felt for him as he told his story as I had just begun to when Victor told me his own version. I knew that that sympathy was what had spared me my life last night. I watched at him as he spoke and could picture the cold, hungry younger version of him hiding in hovels and trying to make a human connection to someone—anyone. I wished he had been spared that pain.

At one point he caught a reflection of himself and came to understand how terrifying and ugly he was. It was his secret hope that the family would be able to look past his appearance once they learned that it was he who had been doing such kindness for them. He wondered if he even belonged with men, or whether his place was instead with the animals.

He had learned French from listening to the family as they taught a young girl how to read and write the language, and he helped them overcome some of the woes of poverty by hauling wood for them and performing repairs in the dark of night. He described reading the books the family had.

As I listened, I was awed afresh at how eloquently he spoke. He had learned all on his own! If he were anyone else, he might have been considered a genius. As he continued, his voice grew hoarse with old pain. He described appearing before the blind grandfather while the rest were out of the home. His conversation and connection to the grandfather went well until the rest of the family returned. Terrified of him, the family erupted into screaming, and the oldest young man began to beat him. He offered no resistance and left them. After this, he turned his thoughts toward Victor. He had learned from Victor's papers who his creator was and where his parents were. His travels were long; he moved only at night and endured scarcity of food and the changing of the seasons. He sought Victor in Geneva, but along the way, he saved a little girl from drowning in a stream, and was shot in the shoulder for his efforts.

Here he paused, his face full of pain he tried to mask. "Chandelle…it was in this time that I become no longer a victim. No longer a saint. I gave up on men, and my mind turned to vengeance." There was regret and pain in his yellow eyes. He turned his body slightly from me, ashamed. "I killed the boy. I took his locket from him and planted it on a woman in a barn. And this was also my first conversation with Victor. I attempted to explain to him my experience, my side. But nothing could make him love me, not even the truth of my story and hardships, and so I demanded he make a companion for me—an Eve—so I would have one equivalent in this life.

"At first, he agreed and began work, but then doubts turned his mind, and he destroyed what he had so far done for me."

He described making Victor the threat that he would be with him on his wedding night, departing, strangling Victor's friend Henry Clerval, and dumping the body along the beach.

"At the end of it all…" he murmured, voice heavy, "at the end of everything, I would have set myself afire and perished by my own hand. The idea of it was already decided within me."

His faraway gaze returned to her. "There now, you have heard it all from me. Did Victor relate it truly?"

I nodded slowly. "His articulation was biased in its curses, but accurate."

"And it was this knowing…that lessened your hate?"

I nodded, looking away. "I still would have run, looking at you—if I had been able to."

"So I owe my happiness to the placement of the furniture?"

I glanced at him, searching his expression, and wishing to tread lightly. But there was a touch of teasing in his eyes. I smiled just a little in response.

"You are a scientific miracle, you know," I murmured. "You should put your memories and records down in a book for posterity."

"Perhaps." The thought seemed to amuse him.

"I was thinking today, and I realized…I have no name by which to call you."

"I was never given one." There was old pain in his voice.

"Then you should choose one for yourself."

"Names are given," he replied in a low voice. "All human beings once born are named. I was not born and have no name."

"Victor should have named you."

"He did not, unless 'vile wretch' counts."

"You are…" I trailed off. "I think we both know the most appropriate name."

He gazed at me, and, after a beat, nodded. "I've called myself such to Victor before—the 'Adam of his labors'. It is appropriate in a way nothing else is, but it is difficult, for it implies I am the beginning of another kind, when I am just the same…"

"It rings in my mind in a way that's right," I said. "Adam," I repeated.

Moisture welled in his eyes, and he turned his face away to hide the tears. I watched him, trying to understand the emotions that stirred in me. I had no love for this unnatural man, but he did have my sympathy. I could find only sincerity in his eyes, though I was not yet sure if I was truly safe with him as he swore. I was never going to faint in his arms again, that was for sure and certain.

"You have a pleasant voice," I complimented him quietly. "Perhaps in the evenings or early mornings, you could read a little to me. But I will not be able to stay up every night in this manner. Perhaps there could be some sort of signal?"

Adam nodded thoughtfully. "I can move about the manor quietly enough…" He looked away, thinking, his lips moving one way and then the other as he considered. "In the main parlor, there is that small glass vase with glass flowers inside it—a decoration on one of the side tables. If you place a book beneath it, I shall know you would like to meet that evening or, if you are not in this room, the early morning. Will that suffice?"

I nodded. "That's a perfect idea." I considered, and then stood. "I'm tired now, Adam. I should like to head upstairs. Please do not follow me."

He nodded and watched me leave the room.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

…

 **W** e met in the woods two days later.

I had placed the little vase on top of a thin novel that morning, though the rest of the day Elizabeth, Ernest, and I had taken tours of two grand estates a few miles out from the manor. Victor was not feeling up to the carriage ride, so he was left with Uncle Alphonse at home.

The second estate had excellent grounds, framed by mountains, and I left Elizabeth and Ernest to the stuffy old halls full of fine art, and had traipsed down the lawns to the creek, stone bridge, and forest. White wildflowers had made a beautiful sight of one of the hills on the property, and I stood for quite a few minutes on the stone bridge admiring it. Movement in the woods caught my eye, and I thought at first I would be treated to the sight of some deer, but instead a hulking black-cloaked figure stepped out of sight.

I debated ignoring the fact that I had spotted him. Little William had been killed by the creature in the woods. But my trust in our understanding and my curiosity won out, and I ambled nonchalantly into the woods after him.

I walked around fifty yards or so into the trees, and then asked to the seemingly empty wood, "How did you follow us here?"

"I can move quickly by foot when I want to." Adam stepped out of his cover behind me, and I turned to look at him, crossing my arms. It was not very ladylike of me, and made an amusing contrast with my full, fine dress. Adam smiled a little.

"Did you let me see you intentionally?"

"Yes. You put the vase on a book this morning."

"Yes, but doesn't that signal tonight?"

"If you didn't want to come to see me here, you did not have to."

He had me there. I relented, and smiled a little. "Can you really move as fast as a carriage?"

"Yes." He stepped toward me, his steps quieter on the undergrowth than they should have been. He moved gracefully, like a lion or tiger moves. My instincts told me I should feel uneasy, but the affection in his unnatural face calmed me.

"Have you ever been told you're rather frightening?" I drawled.

His bark of a laugh sent a bird out of a tree above us.

"Are you well?" he asked, reaching me.

"Yes. Less tired than perhaps you've ever seen me. And you?"

"Very well."

"Have you eaten? Are you eating regularly?"

"Are you worried over me?"

I pursed my lips. "I'm just wondering how you feed yourself. Do you steal? Catch things and eat them raw?"

Adam's expression was dry. He did not quite seem to buy my denial. "I steal a great deal. It's difficult to earn an honest living in my situation."

I nodded slowly, gazing ahead as he walked with me along the edges of the property's wood. If I looked ahead and not to the side as he spoke, I could forget what he looked like as we walked, and it almost felt as though I were walking with a normal man. He had an entirely handsome and even gentlemanly voice. I felt almost at ease with him, even though I knew I should not have been.

A gnarled root caught my shoe and I stumbled. Adam was there, catching my hand and waist from the side to balance me.

"Thank you," I murmured, pulling my hand from his. I stepped away, my heart beating queerly, embarrassed. I did not particularly like the physical familiarity with which he treated me. We continued on in quiet, and I led us back toward the break in the trees and the green of the lawn.

"While you are out, I will find Victor alone this evening to speak with him," Adam told me quietly. "But I will not mention you. It's my worry that if I mentioned you, he would take some sort of action. I should wish to leave you out of what is between us."

"I am involved, and there is no changing that," I replied, "but yes, I should like to be the one to broach the subject with my cousin in my own time. So thank you."

Adam nodded and said nothing, looking toward the ground. I wondered about what my part between them indeed was—what my role in Adam's life now was, and his in mine, and grew uneasy. Was I bound now to this…man? I felt a flash of anger. Why was I responsible for Victor's mistakes? Why was I responsible for his creation's happiness?

"I'm going to go back up to the house," I told him, already making my way toward the edge of the trees.

"Have I upset you?"

"No." I passed my fingers over the bridge of my nose, angling my head away.

"Would you still like to see me tonight?"

I reached for kindness despite my sudden wash of emotion. "Early tomorrow morning. I'll wind a clock to wake."

"I look forward to it."

With a glance at him, I stepped out away onto the lawn where he could not follow and walked back up to the estate.

…

Ernest, Elizabeth, and I dined out that evening, and when we returned, I knew we would find Victor agitated. He was in a sitting room with a large glass of brandy in his hand, his sunken eyes far away, but he had dressed with care, and looked a gentleman.

Elizabeth seated herself near him and his faraway eyes focused on her in the present, softening. His mood was strange, and though some of the fear was gone from such looks, his eyes still jumped to windows occasionally. I studied him, wondering what had transpired between him and Adam this evening. What words were traded?

I watched Victor play at being the man his family wanted him to be, and for the first time, felt the ache of loss for the man he should have grown into. Victor and I had never been close, but I had still looked up to him. He had always been brilliant at his studies, and every bit the French gentleman. Now he was eroded and soiled.

And yet his brilliance had worked a miracle of nature. His brilliance had spat in the face of God. We sat in the presence of perhaps the greatest scientist alive in the world.

He had not been ready for his own success.

We played cards and Victor and I both won the majority. Uncle came to join us when Elizabeth treated us to her talents on the pianoforte. She refused to sing, but her hands wove grace into the notes. Ernest made jokes and coughed every time he shared some of Victor's whiskey, to my amusement.

We told stories and shared local news and gossip Uncle had from the papers and his friends. Relatives and friends from all over Europe would soon be traveling into town for Victor and Elizabeth's wedding, and we spoke of their accommodations and travel plans.

It was the first evening together that Victor was not obliged to leave to go to his bedroom suddenly because of headache or upset mood, and I could tell Elizabeth was reassured and pleased by the normalcy of the evening. Elizabeth and I had been close when we were young, and at times I wondered if I was doing the right thing by allowing her to remain ignorant of her lover's deep and dangerous flaws. I would wish to know if it were me. Then again, if it were me, I would not have been as easily fooled. I loved Elizabeth dearly, but between the two of us, I was the quicker and the wittier one. She was fairer and gentler.

The manor was quiet and peaceful when we all began to retire. Uncle and I were the first to head upstairs to bed. I could feel a lightness in the house—by degrees, the fear and grief that had been plaguing the Frankenstein family were lessening. I felt safe, though I knew a beast of a man was lingering near us all. I worried over what might change in the future…but for now, I felt we were safe.

I changed into a nightgown and washed my face and teeth in the washroom. My eyes often lingered in doorways, suspicious of finding a looming shadow watching me. But there was nothing. I was alone in the hall and in my room.

I had taken one of my uncle's clocks from the downstairs mantle up with me, and I wound it to chime at five in the morning, a dreadful predawn hour. But despite my misgivings, I was excited to speak to Adam again. He had brought so much complication and uneasiness into my life, but he also brought excitement and variance.

I fell asleep thinking of him.

When I woke to the quiet chimes of the clock, dawn was an hour or two off yet, and the world was still dim and dark and cool. I lit the oil lamp in the washroom in order to pin up my hair and wash my face. As my heart beat strangely, I changed into a casual morning dress and wiggled my feet into soft slippers. While I had been getting dressed, the light had barely changed, so I lit a small lamp and carried it with me to make my way downstairs.

I hunted first in the kitchen for a heel of yesterday's bread, some jam, and a small wedge of cheese. I was always hungry in the mornings. With a second thought, I buttered another slice of bread for Adam, and then with the two plates I softly stepped through the dark, silent house to the secluded library.

He allowed me to find him sitting in an armchair around behind the last row of low shelves with a novel in his hand. He looked up from his book unsurprised, and we gazed at one another in the dimness of the one lit candle close beside him and my own lamp. I was still unused to his unnaturalness; it took me a moment or two to acclimate myself. I was holding his plate with its bread, and as I approached I offered it to him with a quiet, "Good morning."

The gesture seemed to touch him. He reached out to take the plate, his every motion gentle and slow, as if trying not to startle me. His frightful yellow eyes were soft as butter. "Good morning," he murmured. "Thank you, Chandelle."

"I imagine you must eat rather a lot."

He smiled a little. "Perhaps more than you, yes." His eyes investigated me. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, of course. Though I am unused to waking so early." I glanced to the dark windows across the room. "It is a strange time of day."

"It is one of my favorite times," Adam replied gently. "It is the time when the day is the most full of stillness and promise. Please, sit."

I took up the chair beside him that he gestured to.

"What did you say to Victor?" I asked him, rather impatient. "How did he take what you told him? He did not seem much different to me—perhaps only a little more at ease. He is still paranoid."

Adam shifted in his seat. "I told Victor that despite all his best attempts, I was beginning to find purpose in life outside of him—outside of his rejection or his acceptance. That I was more at peace with the human race…and with him. That I was lifting my threat and would instead leave him alone the night of his wedding. That I was extending mercy…even though he had been unable to extend any to me." Adam's faraway gaze returned to mine. "I do not know if he believed me or not. He spent the entire duration of my brief visit with him trying to kill me, with little success." His voice had gone dry.

"I hate that he did not warn any of us about you the minute you started going after his loved ones," I whispered, angry with my cousin afresh. "He leaves us in such danger, just to conserve his pride."

Adam said nothing.

After a few moments, I gestured to the book he had placed beside his armchair. "De Lafayette?"

"I thought perhaps something light? Will _The Princess of Cleves_ be welcome? If not, perhaps the poetry of Crétin or Marot—"

" _Cleves_ would be fine. I have not read it since I was a girl." I settled comfortably into the chair, chewing my breakfast. I should have made some tea.

"Alright, then. _The Princess of Cleves_ by Madame de Lafayette." Adam took up the little book resting beside his chair and flipped the first couple pages. He began in a gentle, pleasant murmur, "Grandeur and gallantry never appeared with more lustre in France than in the last years of Henry the Second's reign. This Prince was amorous and handsome, and though his passion for Diana of Poitiers Duchess of Valentinois was of above twenty years standing, it was not the less violent…"

After a quarter of an hour, I stopped him to go make tea. Adam accompanied me into the kitchen, to my disquiet. I was unfamiliar with the space. Staff did all the cooking in my uncle's manor, and so it took time for me to find a kettle, leaves, and a strainer. Adam looked on with a wry expression as I set to making a fire in the smallest cooking stove. I tried to ignore him, but finally I stood with my hands at my hips.

"Would _you_ like to do this, then?" I demanded waspishly.

He came forward, trying not to smile, and reached out to take out some of the wood I had placed, which irritated me, because I believed I had placed it rather well. "You can't start with so much of this," he murmured. "Fire needs air."

" _And_ fuel."

He took the matchbox from me gently and lit the tinder, coaxing it with a little breath. His hands were graceful, despite their size.

"You can stack them again now," he said when the coals were smoldering. I stared at him.

"With the fire going? I'll burn myself."

"It's a small thing yet, and like you said, it needs fuel. You stacked the wood rather well before."

His compliment sufficiently mollified my bruised pride and so I carefully began stacking. Within a few minutes, a comfortable bed of red heat was shimmering in the cooking stove, and I placed the wire rack atop it and the kettle atop that. Adam had found sugar in the pantry while I had been working, as well as cups and saucers in the cabinets, and set them beside the leaves and strainer for me.

Eventually the tea was ready, and I followed him back out into the library and settled in to listen to more prose. His voice, even low as he kept it, was rich and warm. I liked best closing my eyes so that he became just a voice without a body. I liked him best in those moments.

The light in the room imperceptibly changed from back to blue. The silhouettes of furniture stole back their form and detail, and rather suddenly, Adam closed the little book.

"The servants are waking," he murmured. "It's time for me to go."

I felt irritated at the early rising of the servants. He was putting the books back. I stood as he collected the tea tray and handed it to me.

He paused before leaving my side.

"Thank you for this time, Chandelle. It means more to me than you can know."

I had the instinct to kiss his cheek in goodbye as was customary, but my stomach still contracted in distaste whenever his skin was close to mine. Instead, I gave him a nod.

"I've enjoyed it," I replied quietly. And, almost as silent as a cat, he slipped away. I brought the tea to the east sitting room in order to have a view of the lightening of the morning sky as the sun rose. I had not watched a sunrise in…well, perhaps years.

A maidservant gave a gasp when she walked in on me, and I turned to frown at her. "Good morning."

"Good morning, mademoiselle," she said quickly. "I apologize—you surprised me. Do you need anything?"

I glanced down at my tea cup, the last sip or two now cold. "If you could replace the tray. Perhaps with some breakfast as well."

"Certainly…" She took up the tray, saw the second cup, and glanced around. "Is…someone else awake?"

"What? Oh. No, they're both mine. It was cold this morning. The tea helped warmed me." I looked away back out the window.

"Ah." The maidservant confusedly took the tray away. I gazed out the window, wondering where Adam went when he was not here. Did he hide in the attic? In our barn? Someone else's barn? Did he have a cave in the woods?

Uncle was the first to wake, of course. He sat beside me and stretched his legs out with a long sigh.

"You are _never_ awake this early, _ma fifille_." His smile was warm.

"'Never' is far too absolute a word, Uncle," I replied with a little smile.

"Perhaps, perhaps. Trouble sleeping?"

"I slept well until I was simply awake, and then I wanted to see the sun rise. I went to sleep early last night." I turned to him, my smile teasing. " _You're_ awake. Tell me Uncle, why is it that older people never seem to sleep quite as much as younger ones?"

My uncle laughed. "Because sleeping is too much like being _dead_ , dear, and we know we will be _that_ soon enough."

I smirked. We watched the sunrise.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

…

 **I** was walking the gardens late that afternoon when the old field barn kept drawing my eye. It was a bit of a walk, and I was perspiring in the slanting afternoon sun when I got there. The barn no longer held any animals and it was locked. I walked around it, curious, and wondering if maybe this was Adam's home. I saw no windows, however, nor any evidence of someone habiting the place.

After some refreshment back at the manor, I climbed the stairs past the family bedrooms to the endless storage spaces of the attic areas. There were a couple small rooms—children's rooms or extra servant's rooms—and rooms full of covered furniture, luggage trunks, and other odds and ends. I found stacks of newspapers and boxes of books and letters, some of which I looked through. Most of them were trifling, but some were love letters that entertained me for a time.

There were frames, dishes, pottery, rugs, and cloths. I saw two old baby cribs, old toys, hats, and ancient fishing rods. My uncle's fishing rods were downstairs—these might have been his father's. Tools and screens for fireplaces, tatty blankets and cigar boxes. Basins, desks, unfilled oil lamps, a dollhouse with dolls, and a birdcage.

I kept expecting Adam to find me alone here, but he never came. Eventually, I grew bored with my exploring, and my eyes itchy from the dust.

In the afternoon of the next day, I placed a book beneath the vase on the table and was sitting in my usual chair in the library with a blanket across my lap when he arrived late that night. I had taken a tray with leftovers from dinner up and squirrelled it away for later, and we took a cold late-night meal together.

"Adam," I began, watching him eat, "where do you live? You must have some sort of semi-permanent place somewhere nearby."

He gazed at me and did not reply right away. Finally he said, "There is a little abandoned farmhouse in a clearing in the woods about two miles away."

"Across the Wexling's field? Or in another direction? West?"

"North. Through the woods on the north side of this property. Why do you ask?"

"I wanted to know. I thought perhaps you had taken up residence in our barn or our attic."

"There have been nights I have stayed in the attic," he admitted. "But the farmhouse is not far."

"You didn't…kill its occupants, did you?"

"No," he sighed. "A tree had fallen on the house in a storm, and it was in disrepair. I imagine the owners packed and left instead of spending the money they would have to to fix it."

I nodded slowly. "You seemed as if you didn't want to tell me where you live."

His sad eyes met mine. "Forgive me for my caution. We do not know one another very well yet."

"That is true," I agreed slowly. "I feel as if I know your entire life's story, but I am still uncertain about how volatile your temper is…how safe I am with you…what sort of sense of humor you have." I shifted and smiled just a little. "Although I'm learning the latter: dry, with propensity for witticisms."

He did not smile in response. "You are safe with me, Chandelle."

"I'll decide that for myself."

"My temper… I suppose I cannot vouch for it. It is possible it might startle you at certain times. But no amount of anger would cause me to harm you."

I was not so certain. "No? What if I turned on you and cursed you as Victor does? What then?"

His eyes were dark and deep, imaging it. They seemed to sink into their sockets. A twist of pain ghosted across his scarred face, but he replied, "Not even then. You have given me what no one else has been able to—or perhaps will ever be able to—and for that, you will never see my hatred or my vengeance."

I thought on his words for a time, weighing them and trying to decide how much I believed them. He was quiet, and the quiet was companionable.

I turned to him. "Perhaps I might read to you, just for a little? Or do you prefer reading?"

His eyes were butter soft, all lines around them melted. "I'd be pleased to hear you read, if it's what you want."

"Only for a bit. You have a better voice for it than I. But I shouldn't like to see you do all the work." I gave him a tiny smile as he handed over the thin little book. His expression twitched minutely with emotion.

I began where he had left off the first night, attempting to keep my voice quiet. At times I would glance up at him and see him watching me with a guarded expression that at times wavered and allowed a glimpse of what only could be described as adoration to shine through.

At the second such moment, I faltered in my reading.

I had glanced up and caught him gazing at me with such tenderness that I was astounded and confused. I realized that no one could fraud such an expression. Nor would they.

I had become the center of the world for this…being. This facsimile of a natural man. This man whose mind was so sharp he had picked up language, writing, and philosophy without formal instruction. Whose voice was rich and smooth as night falling upon a mountainside. Who had seen nothing but cruelty in this world, and yet was able to speak and touch and move with such considerate gentleness.

Such a man promised me he would never hurt me. And I knew then that I believed him—the instinct beating like a pulse.

His expression had changed swiftly into his more guarded expression, and then into concern and question when I said nothing and only stared at him.

"Chandelle? Are you well?" he asked, leaning toward me. "Do you need water? Are you too tired?"

"I'm well," I murmured. "Only…only lost in thought." I cleared my throat and continued reading until I ended a section. Then I handed it back to Adam. "Shall you read now?"

"Of course." He began were I had left the story. I listened for perhaps a full hour, occasionally shifting my position in the armchair I was in and closing my eyes at times to better picture the scenery and action Adam's voice was painting.

Seemingly suddenly, there was a gentle hand on me. I opened my eyes sleepily to see Adam kneeling very close, his hand on my shoulder. The oil lamp we'd had in the room had dimmed significantly. His uncanny eyes were full of warm affection, and I left safe; even as that wide hand moved tenderly from my shoulder to the side of my jaw and my cheek, I did not remember to be disgusted.

His hand was callused and warm and he smelled of pine and wool. Pleasant smells. I liked the touch; I closed my eyes and moved my head more firmly against his hand.

"You should go up to bed," he murmured. "I've kept you too long it seems."

"I will," I whispered, still pressing my face to his hand and smelling the scent of his sweat and hair and cloak, so close. I felt his hand tremble—I felt his entire body tremble slightly. I opened my eyes and wakened a bit more fully to look at him.

There was a trembling hunger in his face and muscles and a swirl of emotions in his eyes. As if we shared a mind, I could feel how badly he wished to take me into his arms. What shocked me was how my body pulsed with a shallower echo of that desire. How I almost wanted him to have less self-control.

But he was moving away from me and standing, giving me room to stand beside the armchair. I took a breath and did so, rubbing at my nose with a hand. I smoothed my clothes.

"Hold still," I instructed him quietly. Reaching to stand on the tips of my toes, I kissed him goodnight gently on both cheeks like the Frenchwoman I was.

As I stepped back, I saw that tears were welling and then spilling rather madly down his cheeks. A sort of light groan escaped his lips in a shaking breath. He reached up a hand to rub his mouth and then used the back of his wrist to wipe the sudden wetness from his face. When he looked again at me, it was with the same trembling, bone-aching desire to touch and hold that had been in his expression and the carve of his muscles before. Something thirsty and tender was welling in my own stomach like a hotspring at the sight of his emotions, but I shut myself off from it.

"Goodnight, Adam."

He seemed to struggle for a moment to get out the words. "Goodnight. Goodnight, Chandelle." One of his hands was pressing against the center of his chest, fingers splayed. Most of his weight was on only one of his legs; he slumped slightly as if there were a heavy weight inside him. He forced a reassuring smile, though his cheeks still glinted wetly in the lamplight.

I swallowed, nodded, and turned, fleeing the room and my own confusion.

…

It was perhaps unkind of me to keep him waiting, but I did for a few days. Longer than I had before. In the clear light of day, part of me resented his sentimentality and the pressure of responsibility and requital it demanded of me. He was not a natural man. He could not allow himself to expect to inspire natural feelings from me. There was no future in it.

Surely he could see _that_ , at the very least.

My mind was often occupied with other things, but in the times it was not, my thoughts often returned to him, like water flowing from high ground to low without a choice in the matter. I cared about his wellbeing. I had become rather fond of him, even in this sort acquaintance. But how was this to be sustained? Secret meetings at night from now on? I had left my studies at news of our family deaths, but eventually I would be obliged to return to London. Would Adam accompany me? Where would he stay?

Only a few days ago I was the most concerned about how my connection to this man would affect _my_ life—how it might inconvenience me. The change the connection would bring about on my life still unsettled me, but now I was also concerned with his happiness. I had not asked for the responsibility of his happiness, and perhaps I did not deserve either the difficulty or the goodness of it, but the responsibility was mine.

I did not know how to reconcile the two, however—my life and happiness…and his.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

…

" **Y** ou're different."

His mouth thinned into a line. "I realized the last night we spoke that I must discipline myself better."

Adam was standing beside me four days later as I sat on a large boulder within the wood on my uncle's property. I could still see the manor through breaks in the tree trunks, but we were well hidden. I had purposely moseyed through the wood thinking perhaps he would seek me out. He had. But his physical demeanor was less accessible now that it had been the last time we had spoken. His face was fully guarded and unreadable, his movements censored and precise. It irritated me, though I could not pinpoint why, and though I knew it shouldn't have.

"Why?" I asked, frowning down at the dirt.

He crossed his arms. He was so tall standing—like a man out of a story. But his face was young yet. Lined, but by ragged scars instead of wrinkles. "I upset you at times when I am sincere." He looked away, his jaw set hard. "Giving indulgence to certain impulses and emotions of mine isn't sensible."

I wanted to argue. I wanted his sincerity. But I knew he was doing the gentlemanly thing by distancing himself appropriately. What would it make me if I argued with him?

"Why can I not have your sincerity?" It was a foolish question, childish, and I knew it. He gave me a hard look. I added, "I don't want you to be so aloof and coarse with me."

"That is how I am," he growled softly. "Don't forget _what_ I am."

"I know what you are, Adam," I said gentling my voice.

He made a growling sound. "You must not forget. And _I_ must not."

I was upset with him, though I was trying not to be. I looked away and murmured, "You should be able to be sincere with me because I'm the only person you have. Even if it is a bit much for me at times. Or even a bit improper. I want to be able to give that to you."

"And what about what I want to give you?" he replied, his voice gentler than it had been. "I don't want to see you uncomfortable again. You were four nights ago—"

"I wasn't."

"—and I don't want it to happen again. Your wants are more important to me."

"Don't be dramatic! Our friendship must be a compromise. You will be disappointed sometimes and I will be startled and put upon other times. It seems to me to be the way it is."

I had made a sound argument and he felt silent.

We both heard Ernest calling for me from the closer grounds of the manor.

"Thursday morning?" I asked him. He nodded, and then looked away. I turned, raising my skirts, and left him.

…

The next night I awoke in the dead of it knowing he was there.

My eyes opened, but I could see nothing in the prefect blackness. Still, I felt him. Smelled him. The scent of the woods and the thick wool of his cloak.

"Adam?" I whispered.

"Yes…I'm here," came his low whisper in reply.

Three quiet steps on the floorboards and a beat later there was a hiss and crackling of fire catching as he lit the candle beside my bed. He flinched at the light, his fingers quick, and his dark eyes intent on the work of his hands. I watched him as the flicker of the candlelight played upon his face. It cast his upper body into light and shadow and looked soft upon his scarred skin. I was rather shockingly unsurprised that he was in my bedroom at this hour. He did not obey the laws of normal courtesy; he was too wild or too holy for them. Perhaps both.

He had the presence of a dark angel—a protector that could carry the wrath of God. By instinct I knew that if I had not woken, I would not have been disturbed.

His eyes came to mine finally and saw my scrutiny with discomfiture. He grimaced.

"I do not hate the way you look anymore," I murmured.

"Please," he muttered darkly, "I know what I look like."

"Your own opinion will not change mine and you shall have to reconcile yourself to that."

His eyes flicked back to mine. "You are very stubborn," he chuckled finally. The sound, the way he looked when he smiled, made my face feel warm. The night was deep and still and there was warm firelight between us. The light and the privacy were intimate, and this meeting went so strongly against proper etiquette that every inch of me hummed with the thrill of it. I was only wearing my nightgown beneath the bed covers, and the scent of him was filling my senses as it had the night I had fallen asleep in the chair and he hand woken me with a touch. I wanted his touch again. I wanted to press my lips into his hand as I had that night. My heart began to beat in hard thuds against the ceiling of my ribs.

"Adam," I whispered, shifting slightly beneath the bedclothes. My right hand reached toward his face and my fingers trailed across his cheek. His eyes swam with sudden emotion.

With a groaning growl he twitched as if to pull me tight against his chest but at the last moment his muscles stiffened and he griped the edge of the mattress with his large hands instead, his breaths coming fast. I moved back from him and watched his expression apologetically. I was behaving impolitely and without the expected modesty of a woman. He was…who he was. But yet it seemed that fact and logic would not stop me from feeling…reacting. Wanting. I had wanted those strong arms to tighten around me and crush me against him. I wanted the words shaped by his brilliant mind whispered close in my ear while he lay beside me. In this candlelight, that was clearer inside me than ever. I closed my eyes tightly for a moment.

He too closed his eyes and exhaled shakily, pulling himself away from me.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I don't mean to be unkind." I lifted my eyes to his.

"I am trying…not to be selfish," he managed. "I have nothing for you. It would be foolish of you to indulge me and I know this." I could hear in his voice the emotions swirling through him. "Understand me. Your touch…sweet Chandelle, it is what I want most…it is everything. But it overpowers me. I'm afraid of…of my own passion." His expression was tight.

"Adam…"

Our eyes stared into each other's and my legs felt as if they were melting. He shut his, and the moment between us broke.

"I cannot think logically enough with you so close," he murmured hoarsely, moving on his knees back a foot or so from the bed. The world grew colder as he did so. "I will try to be just your companion," he murmured. "It is how this should be and I know so. I may make mistakes, but I am trying."

I was looking away.

"Chandelle. I…I won't impose on you. I promise. I won't forget—"

"What you are?" I interrupted. "What you are is a man and it seems it is impossible for me to go about forgetting _that_."

"Brash girl," he growled. My remark had brought pain to his dark eyes for a moment, and I thought his shields would fall, but he masked his expression again emotionlessly. "I cannot be for you in that way. Do not be so cruel as to tease me."

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers, trying to get my emotions under control. I didn't know what I wanted.

He continued, "When it comes to you, I lay everything I want aside in favor of what is best for you."

"Are you so sure _you_ know what's best for me?"

He closed his eyes. "Chandelle, please…"

"Yes, very well—have your discipline."

"How can you be angry with me?" he growled low. "It can never _be_. It isn't _right_ for you."

My heart was stinging with what I identified as rejection and my next words were thoughtless. "Perhaps Victor could only make you resemble a man but not _feel_ like one."

There was perfect silence as he stared at me. Then a gust of air hit my face as he stood swift as lightning and was gone. The candle he had lit flickered wildly in the draft then went out, casting the room into darkness once more. Adam had made no sound, but the roar he would have made had he been at liberty to do so nonetheless echoed in my ears.

…

If I never saw him again, I deserved it. He would do better to stay away from me. I was no better than Victor. He created life and tore it down, and I too had given life and then caused pain.

I avoided my family the next day and remained shut in my room. Why had I hurt him? Hell hath no fury… I had been hurt and had therefore wanted to hurt him. And I had succeeded brilliantly.

It was unlike me to be so carelessly unkind. But I had never felt so powerfully before. And caught in the riptide of these unrecognized emotions, I had let my bruised feelings get the best of me and had in turn busied the man I…

My tears would not cease as the new day waned. I slept fitfully through the daylight and when the night descended and the home quieted as the family went to sleep, I waited hoping that maybe he would come back because I had placed a book beneath the vase. Really I knew he would not.

I had to at least apologize if I could not heal the wounds I had inflicted. Even if I could only see him once more, I had to offer my remorse. But how to find him?

The night continued to deaden until the only noises were my heartbeat, the drop of my tears onto the pillow, and the soft hum of crickets outside.

"Adam," I called out softly to the shadows. "Adam."

When there was no reply, no smell of pine and wool reaching me in the darkness, I closed my eyes. "Liar. You said you would come. But I am a liar as well. I said I would be kind."

I could not remain any longer in bed. I had to try. Changing into warmer clothes, I donned my shoes and coat, took a small oil lamp from the sitting room, and quitted the house. I crossed the yard lit fairly brightly by the moon overhead and went towards the dark woods surrounding the estate. Surely I would have looked like a lost spirit from anyone watching from the house, but no one could be awake at this time, so it did not matter. I entered the wood and remained at the fringes in view of the house, stopping and waiting.

"Adam," I said, my voice thick with tears. "Adam?" I walked through the dark edges of the wood. "Adam?" Clutching the lamp in my hands tightly, I spoke, though I knew I might have been entirely alone. "Adam…I'm so sorry. I meant none of it. I…I was hurt. I wish that I had not allowed myself to be so unkind. You're a better person than me. I can't censor myself as well… I'm so sorry." I wrapped my arms around my middle to keep myself upright. "I…"

I trailed off as Adam stepped out of the dark trees. My heart swelled at the sight of him, his tall, strong body and the moonlight falling on his face just as it had the first night I had met him. There was a moment of silence between us and in his face there was a heartbreaking sadness, but also something he had never before allowed to shine through his eyes: pure, unadulterated love.

My knees went weak and shook. Given another half a moment, I would've launched myself into his arms, but before I could move, Adam's head jerked to look toward the house.

"Chandelle, get behind me." He was moving toward me, his eyes on something I could not yet see but was beginning to hear, his face shifting into a grimace of hatred. Something was crashing through the wood toward us.

A sharp and unforgiving voice sliced through the dark wood.

" _Get away from her, you fiend_!" Victor cried viciously, crashing toward us, pistol drawn.

Things then happened very quickly.

Hearing Victor's voice, I launched myself around Adam, facing Victor and placing my body between them, knowing it would protect Adam. Victor would not shoot me.

But this action pointed a pistol at me, and that was not something Adam could abide. With a snarl he leapt forward to pull me behind him and a shot rang out in the moonlit night.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

…

 **I** screamed as I felt Adam's body shudder. But he continued to move, which made tears of relief spring from my eyes as he launched himself from in front of me, and, quick as a cobra-strike, wrenched the weapon from Victor's grasp and forced my cousin to the ground quaking and immobilized. My breath stopped for a moment as I saw Adam's left arm hanging limply at his side, blood staining the black wool of his cloak and shining silver in the moonlight.

He leaned over Victor and growled in a deadly tone, "I'm not going to kill you because it would upset your cousin. But if her life is ever again threatened by your hand, I will destroy you." He then looked up at me. His face was pale. "Are you alright?"

"I—of course—but your arm—"

"I must leave to tend to it."

"I'll come with you," I said. He grimaced at me and I replied more fiercely, "I'll come with you. Do you have everything you need to take care of—?"

"Yes," he answered, straightening and moving away from Victor on the ground, who scrambled up fiercely though had no more weapons to assault Adam with.

"Chandelle!" he cried. " _Do not go with him_! He's going to kill you just as he killed your baby cousin William! _He murdered William_!"

I stared back at Victor, my face hard. "I will see you again soon, Victor." I followed Adam as he hurried away. We left my cousin shouting behind us as we set off through the dark woods.

I kept my small lamp high as I half-ran alongside Adam. "Are you going to be alright?" I asked him anxiously. He was holding the wound on his upper left arm as he moved, and blood shone between his fingers.

"It's hardly fatal. I will need to remove the bullet, however."

"Will you be able to do so?"

"We will see." He glanced at my face and added more gently, "Don't worry."

"I _am_ worried. I care about you. I can run if we need to move faster."

"Only go as fast as you can comfortably."

I increased my pace as much as I could. "Are we headed to the farmhouse?"

"Yes."

"I didn't know Victor was awake when I left—I'm so sorry. He must have seen my light from the manor."

"It's not your fault."

My throat was tight. "Adam…I truly did not mean what I said."

"Thank you," he replied quietly.

"Would you have come back?"

"If you had wanted me."

"Even if I had meant it? Even if I were that blind?"

"I have known far worse. I said I was yours and I meant it."

I pinched my lips together to keep from telling him all that was in my heart. This was not the time. We moved through the dark woods quickly. I didn't know how he could tell his way, but he knew where he was going. I imagined his blood loss was weakening him, but he didn't show it—probably to avoid worrying me. On we half-ran through the thin woods in the darkness.

Finally, my legs aching, we made it to a tiny clearing, and at the far end of it where the trees began again was a tiny farmhouse. It was old but well-built, the sides being of stone and mortar, but I could see where a massive oak had fallen onto the left side. Adam had cut and heaved out the tree and had rebuilt the walls and roofing, though the patches were ugly. There was a small stone well far off to the side.

I followed him across the moonlit clearing and into the small house. He went directly to the stone fireplace and began piling wood into it with one arm.

"Let me do that," I said, but he was finished already.

"Light it please, if you would," he replied. His voice was taut—the only sign he was in pain.

"Of course," I replied, bending to take the glass away from the oil flame. I carefully lit the dry wood. The tinder beneath the dry oak logs crackled to life and began to light the room. I followed Adam with my helpful lamplight as he slipped into the kitchen and watched as he found a clean cloth. He wet that, and then set it aside and began rummaging in a top cupboard. He took out what looked like a forgotten and half-empty bottle of liquor, and poured a portion of it over his right hand, concentrating on the fingers. He then went to sit on the study wooden table.

"Please leave the room," he said. "I don't want to frighten you."

"If you need help…"

"If I need help, I will call for it. Leave your lamp here for me, if you would."

"Alright," I murmured, and did as he asked.

I went through the darkness to the fire and set a couple larger logs on it. I then sat anxiously in one of the few pieces of furniture in the room—a worn wooden chair. After a moment of silence I heard a terrifying snarl of agony and squeezed my eyes shut. The snarling was prolonged, rising and falling in volume. Finally it cut short with a loud panting noise. My hands had risen to my mouth and I found myself standing.

"Chandelle…" came a groan. I sprang forward toward the kitchen as I heard a loud thump and then silence. When I beheld the scene, I again had to cover my mouth.

By the flickering lamplight, Adam lay unconscious on his back across the wooden slab of the kitchen table, the bloody bullet in an equally-bloody hand lying limp across the wood, and his wound unwrapped and still seeping. Gritting my teeth, I pounced on the wet cloth, soaked it in what was left of the liquor, and cleaned his wound as best I could while it seeped. I then packed it and bound it tightly, using a number of clean cloths. After I was finished, I cleaned his hand, his cloak sleeve, the table, and other areas with the stain of blood.

He was far too heavy for me to attempt to move off his position lying the length of the table, but I did not wish to leave his arm dangling. I piled crates and towels beside the table beneath his arm to lift it slightly above the level of his head, hoping elevation would lessen the blood flow.

I knew the cloths I wrapped his wound in would need to be changed in a few hours, but in the meantime, with a ferocious and manic energy, I got the main fire blazing, and closed all the curtains so the light could not be seen from the wood. I fetched cold water from the well, strained it with a cloth, boiled it, and poured it into a clean pot for drinking and cleaning. I set another pot on the fire, boiled our remaining cloths to clean them, and hung them to dry. I scrubbed the kitchen and cleaned and rearranged the scant furniture in the main room.

Then, with nothing left to do, I hovered around him, worrying more than I had ever worried for anyone in my life. I spoke to him, ran my hand through his sweat-soaked hair, and stroked his cheek and bare, scar-lined chest. I did not sleep.

At one point I heard distant shouting in the woods, and knew it must be my uncle with Earnest and Victor searching for me in the dark. The far off noise made my gut clench with guilt. I was causing them such fear and misery. The shouts did not draw close to the hidden farmhouse, and they did not find us.

Blood soaked the cloths I wrapped Adam's wound in, and I was terrified it would never stop. When the cloths were soiled, I kept cleaning and rebinding his wound. When I wept, I rubbed the tears from my face roughly. He was so pale… What if it got red and purple and angry as wounds sometimes do? I knew people could die from fevers caused by angry wounds. I agonized over him. I lay my head on his broad, scarred chest to hear his stolen heartbeat.

"Adam, stay with me," I commanded of him softly.

I sank into a few intermittent hours of sleep beside him, always waking with odd aches from sleeping slumped over near him.

Dawn lit the small house slowly. His blood-soaked bandages looked even worse in the light of it. I pressed my forehead to his chest. I'd never shed so many tears for anyone.

"Adam…"

"Hush, beautiful," came the most wonderful sound in the world. "No more tears."

I jerked my head up and sobbed with relief when I saw his open eyes and his weary attempt at a smile.

"Don't move," I said quickly. "You can't lose any more blood."

"Alright," he sighed, "just let me…" He pushed his body back so that his legs were no longer dangling over the edge of the table. He rested his head back down on the wood with a groan and I shoved his odd armrest across the floor with a scraping sound so he could put his arm back on it.

I stroked his head gently and pressed my forehead to his temple. "Adam," I murmured.

This intimate touch seemed to move him to speechlessness. His breathing stopped for a few heartbeats and then resumed. "Dearest Chandelle," he whispered hoarsely.

"If you catch a fever, I'll never forgive myself…"

"This isn't the first time I've been shot," he murmured, the ghost of a dry smile on his lips. "Don't be frightened. I'll be alright."

"It might go sour…" I sat upright. "You need water. I strained and boiled some from the well. It's clean." I jolted around the kitchen to fetch him a clean cup of water. He watched me, his eyes warm liquid gold. He took the cup from me in his good hand and drank deeply from it. I fetched him more but he waved it off, so I set the cup down and resumed my seat beside him.

I lifted a hand to touch his face and then stroked his hair, gazing down at him. He lost himself in my face and my touch, forgetting to breathe again. His body and face, only weeks ago repulsive to me, had become something to protect. He lifted a gentle hand to my wrist, touching me there as if he could not believe my arm or my hand on his face were real. I traced the backs of my fingers down his jaw and neck and collarbone and rubbed his bare, scarred chest.

The whimpering moan I had heard the first night I met him escaped his lips again. Fresh tears welled, and I frowned at him. "Now if you go crying, I'll have to force more water on you." I gently dried his tears with my thumbs. He took my hand in one of his and placed it back onto his chest. My eyes softened again.

"Adam," I whispered. "You told me that very first night that you were mine. I am here telling you now: I too am yours. Be kind to me." I smiled just a little. The sting on the bridge of my nose threatened tears, but I ignored it.

He squeezed his eyes shut and his chest shuddered with quiet sobs.

"Stop, stop, shhh," I soothed. "Please. Adam, please."

He ignored me for a while. I lay my head on the wood and pressed my mouth to the top of his warm shoulder.

Finally, with his good arm, he reached up and brushed some hair from my face gently. "Chandelle," he murmured. "I never imagined myself deserving the affection of someone like you. I have tried to be unselfish because it would be so much better for you… There is so much I cannot give you… But I am too selfish to keep myself from you if you… You want this right now and it is far too easy for me to give in. If I could be a natural man for you, I would give anything. I wish I could give you all that you deserve."

"Hush," I replied, my cheeks warm. I looked around us. "You must get your strength back. I want to move you to a more comfortable place but you are too heavy for me."

"I can get up when I must."

"I changed the dressing a while ago, but I may need to change it again in a few hours." I peered for a better look at his wrapped wound. "The bleeding has stopped, but it will still need to be changed at least once I day, I think."

He was smiling a little at me. "I'll be fine."

"Don't be arrogant. I've seen fevers—"

He suddenly pulled be down against his chest and held me there. I shut my mouth and smiled a little, shifting to get comfortable. I closed my eyes.

"Are you alright?" he asked after a minute. "You must be hungry."

I was, but I did not want to move. "I'm fine for a while," I replied. His hand was caressing my face absently and I nuzzled into it, feeling a passion surge through my body. He was a force I gravitated to and his touch was healing. I closed my eyes and sighed.

"There is bread in the pantry here," he murmured.

"Would you like some bread as well?"

He nodded. I fetched it and we ate together. It was stale, but blessedly without any mold.

"I need to return to the manor as soon as you are alright without me," I told him. "My family… If Victor told them everything, they will think me dead. I hate to cause them such pain."

Adam was nodding. "I'll bring you back once I have my strength again."

I eyed his wound. "If that even begins to fester, come to me immediately. I'll get you in to see the best doctor in the country, no matter what I have to pay. You can wear your cloak and I won't let them look at your face…" I trailed off, thinking over the complications.

He squeezed my hand. I turned to frown at him. "Promise me," I said. "You've likely never seen a wound go bad, but it can kill, and—"

"I'll do as you say," he murmured gently. I nodded, my expression clearing. There was quiet between us, me sitting beside him with his hand in my hands and him lying across the table. His eyes drifted closed again and he slept. The outside early summer temperature was pleasant, so the fire did not need to be looked after, but watched him, making sure he was never cold and had water nearby if he needed it.

Watching him sleep caused a wave of tender protectiveness to well low in my belly. He had never deserved all that this life had done to curse and torment him, and even despite this, or perhaps because of it, he was a good man. Kind, strong, quick, and clever. I wanted to give him the kindness the world had denied him. To be worthy of the love with which he looked at me.

I again heard some distant shouting in the woods, but still we remained hidden here. There was no smoke from the remains of last night's fire to give us away. Adam woke after a few hours and sat up with a groan to go outside to relieve himself. When he came back, he sat with me on a cushioned bench in front of the main room's fireplace. I learned against his massive, warm shoulder and closed my eyes. I was now starting to feel my sleepless night. Adam put his arm around me, drawing me close. It felt good. I didn't let myself care about the intimacy of it.

"Let me rest tonight," he murmured gently, "and then tomorrow I will take you back to the manor."

I nodded against his shoulder.

"Are you alright?" he asked with a small hint of trepidation. I tilted my head back to look at him.

"Yes. Just tired. And worried. About you, about my family." I caressed his cheek with my fingertips. His eyes softened and relaxed. He leaned down to press his forehead to mine.

"I shall leave you with them to explain," he murmured. "I don't think it will be possible for them to accept me. But nonetheless you will need to try to explain, I think. It will be better if I am not there. I will come back a few days after, in the night, to see you."

I agreed that that plan was best and relaxed against his shoulder. Soon I was fast asleep, and Adam held me as the afternoon sun warmed the day outside.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

…

 **T** here were rough, thick curtains on the windows that Adam had fashioned for his own privacy that kept the majority of the daylight out. Eventually he stood with me, lifting me with one arm.

"Your arm," I protested.

"I only need this one to lift you, little one," he soothed gently. He began to walk silently through the house.

"Do not spoil me like this," I chastised, my cheeks hot.

"Please allow me this," he murmured low. "To hold you close is an ecstasy."

His honesty struck me silent. But I was not embarrassed by his confession and I felt safe in his arms. He was an enormous force of nature—it was impossible to think that while I was here, close and protected by him, that anything could harm me. There was something immensely comforting in the feeling.

The bedroom of the farmhouse was small and rough, the mattress only straw, but it was large. Adam let me down gently.

"I can sleep on the floor," he murmured, turning. "Get some sleep."

"Blow it all to hell," I replied with a weary sigh, always the lady. "Propriety is entirely out the window already. Stay with me."

He smiled a little, warm and tender, and climbed in first. I pulled off my coat and shoes, but kept all my clothes on as well. A warm flush crept up my neck to my cheeks as I lied down beside him and tugged the thick bedclothes up toward my chin. It was the first time in my life I had ever gotten into bed with a man. My words might have been full of bravado, but now my heart was pounding frantically.

Adam seemed at ease. He lifted his good arm, inviting me against his chest. I settled down against his side with my head near his neck, and his arm tucked me in against him. The movement and the newness of it all made heat and my own heartbeats flutter inside me. I felt like I was on fire with nerves and anxiousness. I closed my eyes, feeling overwhelmed.

I was afraid something further might have been attempted by him now that it seemed we were leaving the limits of modesty behind, but he was quiet and comfortingly still. He pulled me in close, rubbing my back with his unhurt arm, and closed his eyes. Comfort and contentment swelled inside me like hot water filling a bath.

Tucked there against his chest, safe and warm, I caught a few more hours of sleep.

Late in the evening I woke again as Adam got out of bed. He returned with water, another bite of bread, and two apples. I was ravenous, so I ate my apple down to the seeds and stem. I went out to relieve myself and found Adam in the kitchen investigating his dressings when I returned.

"Let me do that."

I slapped away his hands lightly and re-bandaged his bullet wound while he sat in a kitchen chair and I stood. I had to admit, it did look better than before and not like to go sour. When I was finished, I sat on top of the table beside him and absently traced a rather singularly thick, ropy red stitching scar on his arm. Adam followed my eyes and exhaled slowly.

"They've healed a great deal," he murmured.

"Hm? Your scars?"

He nodded. "When I was first…when I first woke, they bled at times, and sometimes whole layers of skin would slough off. It was painful… But they've been calming and healing ever since. I pulled the very last of the old stitching months ago. And the…the colors… The color of my skin has evened out. It's one color now. I think that everything that was not…originally mine…is gone from the surface. It's all new, like when you scrape yourself and new skin grows in."

I nodded slowly. "It's good to hear that. It makes me—it makes me feel better."

"I wanted to tell you."

I traced the ropy scar on his arm to another, and then my eyes moved slowly over his body, arm to chest, to neck. "I think… Adam, I think he tried to make you beautiful."

Adam's mouth twisted almost violently. It was a moment before he could reply. "Well, he certainly made me strong," he muttered darkly.

"The eyes—he didn't account for the eyes. Or that the mind can just immediately instinctually _see_ that you're not…a natural man."

"I read in his notes that he put…er, that some sort of liquid was used for preservation while he worked. For the eyes. It may have dyed them."

I shuddered. Discomfort and shame was etched into Adam's posture. He made no move to comfort me with his touch as I felt he otherwise might have, likely because he was afraid I might flinch away. I took a breath to steady myself and then reached up to touch the side of his face gently. At this touch, his rigid posture melted slowly, and then his arms were then around me, drawing me close and stroking the back of my head and the small of my back with his wide hands.

I closed my eyes and put my arms around his neck tightly, something I had never done before. He paused for a moment in surprise, and then with a soft growl low in his throat, his hands were at my waist and the world spun for a moment as he moved me so that I was sitting in his lap, my arms around his neck.

We sat there quietly for a moment. He was so very warm. I tightened my hold around his neck and lay my head on his broad shoulder. I could not care about the myriad complications at the moment. I just wanted him close. I closed my eyes. It was wrong of me to feel this way. Only pain and disappointment would be gained from it. But he seemed as unwilling to loosen our embrace as I was.

"You're teaching me happiness, Chandelle," he whispered. I could hear in his voice the emotions swirling through him. Was it cruel of me to affect him as I did? My thoughts fell away as his head nuzzled mine in an intimate and instinctive way. He continued, "Sometimes I will think to myself, ' _This_. This is true happiness.' And then there will be a new moment, a new joy, that proves me to be a fool before. Dear angel…" He sighed tenderly and I pressed my head in close against his, closing my eyes. He was not the only one affected by our embrace.

We remained quiet in one another's arms for what had to have been minutes on end. It didn't matter. It was as if the world had more air to breathe.

A while later, I pulled from him and investigated his bandages with my eyes. He had been moving his arm a bit, but it still looked alright. My stomach growled rather demandingly, and Adam smiled indulgently.

"I'm fine," I said quickly. "You're hurt. Don't go out looking for—"

He quieted me with a touch to my face. "I have some more apples and some jerky stored in the outside cellar. Wait here for just a moment."

He came back with a small dinner. I ate two full apples, and three sticks of the terribly salty deer jerky, with water. I giggled over how difficult the jerky was to bite and tear off pieces of, and Adam watched me with dry amusement.

Evening fell slowly around us as we sat on a roughly hewn bench on the back porch of the little house. Half the porch had rotted, but the half the bench was on was still sturdy. I had taken up a towel from inside and fanned away any gnats.

Adam seemed to be in a quiet, contemplative mood. He watched the crescent moon rise with a faraway expression. Tucked against his chest, I also watched the evening fall.

"What were you like as a child?" Adam asked me.

"Precocious," I replied with a rueful smile. "A bit rude at times, and not exactly ladylike. I liked to break rules. I still do, to tell the truth."

"And your mother and father? Your mother is Victor's father's sister?"

"Younger sister, yes." My mouth drew into a hard line speaking of her. "My mother fancied herself an artist. She decided only a few years after I was born that she did not want to be married to my father anymore, or have children. The upper class sometimes can do that sort of thing. Separate. I never really knew her."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not, really. She was a selfish woman." I paused, then continued, "They both come from money. My father owns a number of businesses in Lyon, Marseille, and London."

Adam nodded.

"I never had any siblings," I sighed. "I regretted that, so I kept close with my mother's family and their children—my cousins—even though my mother left my life. They were kind. They could have refused to see me anymore after my mother left, but they didn't. My father's family is stuffier, you see. My uncle's family—the Frankenstein family—they're more interesting. Educated, clever, fun, a little unorthodox. I've always liked them better." I smiled a little. "And of course I have a great many friends now in London. My father's name carries weight there." I gazed up at him. "Adam."

"Mm?"

"I'll need to return there eventually. London. To complete my studies."

He nodded easily. "I assumed as much."

"It might be difficult to keep you hidden there. But not impossible. My father's money can buy a great deal of privacy."

His eyes were soft. "Would you want me there?"

"I'm not sure what would be best. Would you want to be there?"

He considered this. "It is more difficult for me to travel in large cities. But being close to where you are—that could make up for everything." His voice was low, as if he doubted whether or not he should be voicing these things. "But I do not wish to inconvenience your life. You will move, work, court, marry. I will not interfere."

His words were selfless. A great affection and admiration for him crashed against my ribs. I turned with a soft noise to wrap my arms around his neck again and this time it was me that moved myself onto his lap. "You are so kind," I whispered.

"For you," he breathed back in a low voice, holding me tightly with his good arm.

That night we slept as we had that afternoon. I fell asleep before he did, but woke once in the night when he shifted. We rearranged our bodies and then I listened as his breathing slowly sunk again into the deep rhythm of sleep. Warmth rushed through me. I rubbed his broad, shirted chest with my hand and traced the hard lines of his hips. His existence was a miracle and a tragedy both.

I lay my head back down on his arm and slept.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

…

 **D** awn came slowly, like a shy child. Adam was awake before me, and he touched me gently to rouse me. Despite the scratchy mattress, I was comfortable and warm. I opened my eyes to gaze at him.

"You are so beautiful," he breathed.

"You might be a little biased," I teased gently and sleepily.

He smiled crookedly. I traced the lines of his jaw with my fingers, his neck, his collarbone, his arms. He rubbed a wide, callused hand down and up the side of my body, leaving warmth in its wake. My body hummed and sang where he touched me.

His eyes were so warm, his expression impossibly tender. He was teaching me happiness as well. Happiness, trust, affection…

"Chandelle…"

I heard his groan between my legs. The rush of warmth and tingling shocked me. I slowly moved my hand from his jaw and ducked to tuck my head back down against his neck, reeling. He said nothing, only rubbing my back occasionally, as if he could sense I was struggling with something unnamable. Eventually my heartbeats returned to normal.

"I'm going to get some water. Do you need anything?"

"Water as well, please. Thank you."

I went to relieve myself and then fetched the last of the clean water from the pot. I would need to strain and boil more soon. I poured two cups and brought them into the bedroom.

"How is your arm?" I asked as I handed him his cup.

"Fine, though it needs to be re-wrapped, I believe."

I nodded. After I was finished with my water, I fetched what I needed to clean and wrap his wound from the kitchen. It was dark with dried blood, but looked to be healing. "We only have a few unsoiled cloths left," I told him as I worked. "But there are plenty at the manor. You should steal some, or I can fetch you some."

He nodded.

"Wrapping it on your own might be difficult. I can help you if you find me alone."

"I'll be fine."

"This…you…it will be very difficult to explain to my family," I admitted. "After the murders…" _And I still care for him. Perhaps I would feel differently had I known the little boy. But I never met him, nor did I know Clerval._ I struggled with myself. I did not care about his past, but it sounded too callous toward the innocent dead to say it aloud.

Adam's body was stiff and closed-off. He could not meet my eyes.

"I cannot give you forgiveness for the murders," I said to him, "nor will my family be able to. But I already knew you had done these things. I trust you not to hurt me or my family again." I reached to gently turn his face back to me. "…Don't close yourself to me."

His body was so hard. He was usually so soft with me that his immense size and strength were not as dominating, but with his muscles tight like they were now, I was reminded how frighteningly strong he was. How powerful, like a beast.

He allowed me to turn him back toward me, his posture loosening somewhat. I touched his shoulder, neck, and cheek, and his body softened further. He gazed into my eyes for a moment, looking for something in them.

"I keep expecting something to change your mind," he confessed in a low voice. "I feel as if I must ready myself for the moment you realize your mistake."

"What this is—it will not be easy," I admitted. "There are certain sacrifices we both must make. But I…I am willing, for the sake of this friendship, if you are as well."

He reached for me and buried his face in my hair in response. He inhaled and held me. "Sweet angel," he whispered.

"I am no such thing." My voice was weary. "You've already seen my selfishness."

"You are not selfish. How can you comfort me, speak of making sacrifices for me, and yet call yourself selfish? I'll hear no more of it." He cupped my face gently in his wide hand, caressing me there. His touch was soothing and electric at the same time.

"Do you have strength enough to help me find my way back to the manor?" I needed to return home as soon as possible. My family…

He nodded, and slowly, reluctantly, we got out of bed. I found a glass to comb my fingers through my mussed hair in front of and we drank more water and had a meager breakfast of a few more bites of bread.

Our return to my uncle's manor was more leisurely than the long dash in the dead of night to it had been. At the edge of the trees surrounding the property, I lifted my arms to Adam and he lifted me to embrace me tightly.

"If you were not hurt, I would have liked to see you again tonight, but instead you need to rest and heal," I told him. "Perhaps tomorrow night?"

"The pain is not so much," he murmured. "I can visit tonight. I should like to know what has been talked of."

I made an unhappy face and looked doubtfully at his arm.

"Don't worry," he assured me gently. He pressed his forehead to mine.

"Alright," I relented. "But if you don't come, I shall be happy knowing that instead you're resting at the farmhouse."

"Stubborn little one," he whispered affectionately, and gathered me up higher into his arms, nuzzling his face into my neck. He inhaled the scent of me and then placed me back down on the ground. He glanced suspiciously at the manor.

"I may remain close by for a little while," he admitted in a low voice, "to make sure Victor treats you in an acceptable manner."

"I can handle my cousin," I argued. "He's grown sickly. I'm much stronger than I look. Even if he wants to lock me up, I'll simply slap him so hard his face finds the rug."

Adam smirked at my boasts, but then grew serious again. "Be careful, Chandelle."

I sniffed. "This is _my_ family. I will be in no danger." I reached up to take his face in my hands and brought it down to me so I could kiss him goodbye on the cheeks. He held me to him just for a moment and then let me go.

I left him in the trees and walked swiftly across the lawn to the house. The walk to the manor had taken a long time, and by the angle of the sun in the clouds, it seemed around time for afternoon tea.

When I came in from the back doors, the few servants that my uncle kept raised a joyful uproar, and Elizabeth came dashing in first from a nearby room. Relieved tears had sprung from her eyes, and she was like a slim, blonde missile as she threw her arms about me.

"Victor said you had been taken by _William's killer_!" she exclaimed in a watery shout. "Oh, _Chandelle_! Oh, _darling_! What did he _do_ to you?! Where is he?! We'll send for the police again!"

I ignored her question. "Where is Victor?"

"He's—he's in his room! Chandelle—"

"Don't rouse him." My unruffled calm was having a soothing effect on her. "Fetch Uncle and Ernest. I would speak with you three—and quickly."

Poor Elizabeth's face was pale. She looked as if she had not slept or eaten. She nodded, took my hand, and led me toward the library. Having heard the shouting, my uncle and Ernest were both running down the hall in our direction, and we all met in the hallway together. Ernest had broken into tears as well; he embraced me, but my uncle was deathly serious.

"What happened?!" he demanded. "Where is this man?! What was done?! Is what Victor says about Will's murderer true?!"

I steered them all into the library. "Lower your voice. I am entirely fine and no one abducted me," I said quickly. "Victor has been telling half-truths. I should like to speak to you without him near."

"He might have woken." My uncle glanced at the ceiling. His face was haggard and grim, all wrinkles and lines.

"Then quickly." I brought them to the armchairs in the corner of the small library. "What has he told you about this murderer?"

Ernest and Uncle glanced at each other. Uncle answered, "Since you were taken, he has not…he has not been very clear. The loss of another loved one—it seems to have affected his mind. From what we could understand, he believes the man who took you murdered both baby William and Henry Clerval."

" _Coward_ ," I hissed under my breath. "Uncle." I looked him very seriously in the eyes. "Do you think me of sound mind? Do you believe I would be easily swayed by fantasy or nonsense? Do you think me mad?"

My uncle considered my question only half a moment. "I believe you are of sound mind, Chandelle."

"Then you must accept what I am about to tell you as the truth, no matter how outlandish or unbelievable it might sound. I assure you, I have proof of all of it."

Elizabeth looked overwhelmed. Ernest and my uncle's expressions were grim and confused. I could tell they understood the depth of Victor's current madness better than poor Elizabeth. No doubt they had attempted to shield her from it. My uncle nodded to me, and so I told them in a low rush, "Victor is a scientific genius, and he has been working all this time in Ingolstadt on a secret project. He has delved further than any scientist before him. He created a man. _A new man_ , from dead flesh and collected blood and god knows what else. He created a living being."

This hung in the air over all of us, ugly and terrifying.

I surged on. "This man…he is terrifyingly ugly—and strong—and intelligent. When he was first created, he was innocent as a child. Full of the capacity for love and kindness."

Elizabeth's eyes had gone so wide I could see the whites of them all the way around. Ernest and my uncle were silent, listening to me with disbelieving expressions.

"And yet, from the moment he opened his unnatural eyes, Victor hated him. All he could feel when he looked upon the living face of the man he had made was disgust. He was blind to the truth of his innocence. He treated this innocent with violence and hatred. And in turn, this man learned to hate Victor. Every human he tried to reach out to screamed in his face, ran from him, attacked him, or shot him. His innocence turned to vengeance and hatred. To hurt Victor, he murdered baby William and Henry Clerval."

Elizabeth made a shocked whimpering sound.

I took a breath. "He would have killed me as well, and Elizabeth after me, to torment Victor. He almost killed me, but when I first arrived, Victor had confessed everything to me in some sort of fit. I passed it off as mad ravings. But then this man came to kill me. I saw that everything was true. I knew what this man was—his history—his original goodness. I understood it better than Victor. And this man could see I was not as disgusted or overwhelmed by his appearance as everyone else he had met had been, and, hope against hope, he tried to befriend me, reaching out once more for acceptance in the world that had shown him only hatred… I treated him kindly, and he replied with kindness. He has sworn to me never to hurt this family again.

"He is a murderer, and so I know that you will never be able to accept him. But you need to know the truth. Everything Victor is too ashamed to tell you."

I sat back against the chair finally, clasping my hands in my lap. Elizabeth was shaking her head, unable to believe my story. Ernest was looking to his father for a clue as to how to proceed, and my uncle did not take his eyes from me.

"The things you've said, Chandelle," Uncle said hoarsely. "They are beyond the limits of science. Of reality. You and Victor may have seen something terrible—some murderous man, but he could not have been…"

"I would think the same thing, Uncle, if you said as much to me. I wouldn't believe you, either. But I have seen him and spoken to him. What I am telling you is the truth."

But my uncle was shaking his head. "Farmfolk fear monsters, Chandelle. But there are no monsters—only evil men. I shall call the _police nationale_ and—"

"Where, Chandelle?" Ernest demanded suddenly, his face a mask of anger. He had risen to his feet. "Where is this thing—this man? The one who murdered my brother?"

"Did you hear nothing of what I said?" I demanded angrily. "He will never hurt us again, but he knows you could never be forgiving enough to accept him, so—"

"Accept him?! This thing _killed_ Will!"

"And he could kill you where you stand, too, if he wished it," I snapped. "He could kill us all as easily as anything, but he won't now that a single person in the world does not look on him with hatred—"

We all fell quiet when we heard heavy footfalls coming down the hall outside the library. The door opened with a bang and Victor stood in the doorway, sallow, wild-eyed and haggard.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

…

"Chandelle," he said, shocked.

"Victor," I replied crisply.

"You… Where is he? Where is he?" Victor looked to the windows.

"He isn't here, Victor," I growled. "Now why don't you explain to our family exactly who and what he is?"

Victor stared at me and his eyes seemed to sink back into his sockets. "I… I don't think…" He glanced at Elizabeth. "It's not…"

"Elizabeth is not so fragile as all that," I said in a cool voice. "Why don't you explain things to her. The truth, cousin."

A flush had risen to Victor's neck. He looked cornered, like a coward backed into a wall. "You don't know what you're talking about," he hissed.

"I do. I most assuredly know _everything_. And you will tell your father and brother and Elizabeth the truth. _Now_ , Victor."

Tears began to stream down Victor's face and Elizabeth rushed up to comfort him. "Chandelle, stop!" she exclaimed. "Can't you see he isn't well?"

"He isn't _well_ because he created a man, treated him with cruelty, and has been being punished for it since," I hissed. "Contradict me, Victor, if this is not the truth."

Victor quaked, silent. Elizabeth, even while pressed into his arms, was staring up at him.

"Do you know who he is, Victor?" Uncle demanded of him. "This man? Tell us what you know."

When Victor still held his frightened silence, I leveled at him, "He came to _kill_ me within the first few nights I was here, cousin. The man you made." His cowardice and denial infuriated me. "But he did not end up killing me. He came to see you to tell you he was finished taking his revenge earlier this week, didn't he?" Still, Victor said nothing. "You drove a good man to murder, and if it were not for me, and his humanity, he would have kept destroying this family until there was nothing left of it. Because of your cruelty." I found myself standing. "And still! You would have kept his a secret even now, even if I had been found _dead_ —you would have hid behind the specter of some sort of other stranger instead of admit to us that you have this evil inside of you. That you are a cruel man and a coward." I could see my words were cutting him.

"Stop!" Elizabeth exclaimed again. "Please, Chandelle!"

"Chandelle, that's enough," commanded my uncle. "I see that you believe what you say, but it simply is not scientifically possible. You and Victor have both been through—"

"It is," Victor croaked.

"What?"

"It _is_ scientifically possible. I… Chandelle speaks the truth. I created a man."

The room was silent. Elizabeth was staring up at her lover with dread. Ernest and Uncle were gazing at him, torn between horror and disbelief.

"The lab journals are all in Ingolstadt," Victor said in a hoarse voice. "If you could look through them…see my lab…it would be easier to believe. It's entirely possible. With preservation and exaction—with an electrical surge…I created life. And he is here. He stalks me."

"He met with you," I said angrily. "All those months ago on that mountain. He proved to you he was sane and reasonable and even innocent. And still you cursed him. How could you be such a blind, heartless fool?"

Victor trembled. "He has no _soul_ …"

"He _does_ ," I shot back. "Anyone who listens to him could hear it. You only saw what you were afraid of in him—what you hated about yourself—but he has such a capacity to love that you never allowed him to show you. _You_ are the monster!"

"How can you say that?" Ernest breathed, eyes wild. "How can you defend the man that killed William and caused Justine to be executed…? How _dare_ you?!"

"Hate the man who drove him to vengeance, not—"

" _I'll hate whom I wish_!" Ernest exploded at me.

Elizabeth was trembling. " _Please_ …"

"That's _enough_." My uncle's stone-hard voice sliced through and commanded immediate silence. "Victor, you are not well. I'll have the doctor called again. Chandelle, you are to keep your silence. Elizabeth, take Victor to his room. Ernest—" But Ernest was already striding for the door. He yanked it open furiously, refusing to look at me, and left us. Elizabeth and Victor followed, Elizabeth sniffing with tears as they left the room.

My uncle turned to me. He gazed at me a long time.

Finally he took a seat in an armchair.

"Victor confessed all… _this_ to you on your first night here?" he asked finally.

I assumed I was allowed to speak again. "Yes. I didn't believe him. I thought he was mad and it was just empty, guilty ravings. I didn't want to upset anyone by telling you or Elizabeth, especially when he seemed to be getting better…"

"And this—this _man_ —tried to kill you?"

"He came upon me at night a week and a half ago. I couldn't sleep, and I went down to the drawing room with that picture window… He was already in the house. He only threatened me at first…toyed with me…but when he learned how much I knew about him, and how I knew the truth of him, his manner changed. He had never been able to just talk to anyone without being cursed or shot or screamed at. It was enough. It was enough to change his life. A tiny piece of hope and acceptance that he had never been given by anyone."

Uncle took that in for a time. "You never knew William. This is why you defend him." His voice was tight with pain. William had been his son. His boy.

I looked down, ashamed.

"I understand this, Chandelle, but Ernest will not be able to. He is too young."

"I know. But Uncle, in a way it was the saving of us. If I had hated him for it, he would have killed me, and everyone else. Slowly. To torture Victor."

"That is evil."

"Victor _made_ evil through his rejection. But just my acceptance… Uncle, he has sworn never to hurt anyone again. And I believe him. He is so grateful for my understanding… He is so kind, Uncle. Please. The man that killed William—he is dead. He is gone forever. There is only a new man. A man your son created. In that way, your child as well. You will never be able to forgive him, I know. I know. But you don't have to hate him, either."

"Let me meet him."

I shrank a little. "Uncle…"

"Chandelle."

"He will terrify you. And if he does not terrify you, you might try to kill him."

"He doesn't terrify _you_ , and I'm a great deal older than you, girl."

"He truly did at the beginning. Uncle, I quite literally pissed myself, if you'll pardon me. I _clawed_ away from him. I was too afraid to even scream. You'll hate the sight of him. You will. I don't want him to have to see more disgust, more hatred…" I put my face in my hands.

"I will not believe this insanity until I meet this—this man."

"Then don't believe it. I just needed you all to hear the truth. The truth Victor was too much of a selfish coward to tell you."

Uncle looked as if I had personally struck him every time I called Victor evil or a coward. I knew Victor was his son, but… The truth needed to be said.

"If I…" I faltered. "If I am no longer welcome here, I'll make arrangements to leave in the morning."

"You're still our family, Chandelle. You're Luci's daughter. Stay. Ernest may not be able to see you anymore…for a while…but still. You are my niece."

"Thank you, Uncle." My eyes were moist and my gaze downcast.

"Go to bed now, girl. You are tired and you need a bath."

I nodded meekly and went upstairs. I bathed and combed my hair, changing into a clean nightgown. I climbed into bed, blew out the lamp, and waited.

I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke, Adam was climbing into the bed beside me. I reached for him and he brought me against him gently, running his hands over my hair and my arms soothingly. I could not see him in the darkness, but it didn't matter. I closed my eyes and buried myself in his side.

"Did you hear some of that?" I asked in a whisper.

"All of it," he whispered back in the blackness. "Chandelle…I hate that this has made your family upset with you. You did not have to defend me as you did."

"I wanted to."

He pressed his mouth to my head. "I'm so sorry." He exhaled. "What you said…it was so kind. It was…" His voice had grown too thick with emotion to continue.

I held him. He had become so dear to me.

"Adam, be careful visiting from now on," I cautioned in a whisper. "Now that they know of you. They'll be watching me. Maybe even following me. Watching for you."

"I'll be careful."

"Is your arm alright?"

"It's fine."

"I'm sorry if I can't see you for a few days."

"Don't apologize. Sleep now, _mon coeur._ "

I slept.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

…

 **T** he grey of morning dawned strange and silent over the Frankenstein manor.

I dressed slowly and with care, dreading facing my angry and horrified relatives at breakfast. My face in the glass was wan and apprehensive. I felt my family's disgust and anger at me, and it made me want to hide, but I put in the forefront of my mind why I had done what I had and how important it was. I patted my cheeks firmly to bring some color into them and straightened my spine. I had never been one to cower.

I found Uncle and Elizabeth at the dining table. The light from the full windows speared at an angle over the glass and china, sparkling, at a contrast with the somber silence of the room.

Head bowed, I collected my skirt, took a seat, and put a meager amount of food in front of me. I did not feel terribly hungry. My mixture of shame, self-righteousness, anger, contempt, and frustration was too tangled to sort.

Elizabeth did not avoid my eyes, but her own pretty blues were red and puffy from crying. Uncle's expression was a hard frown that did not waver, as if his face were carved from stone.

Ernest walked in, less well-dressed than usual, but when he saw me at the table, he turned and icily quitted the room. I excused myself so that he could take some breakfast.

I tried to occupy and settle my mind with a book, but I only ended up holding it open in my lap while I gazed out a second floor window out over the grounds, wondering where Adam was and if his arm was alright.

Late in the morning, I made my way to Victor's room. The door was ajar and I could see evidence inside of the doctor's visit: corked bottles and tins of powered medicines littered a silver tray on a stool beside the bed next to an ice bucket, its contents now melted.

"Please don't disturb him." Elizabeth's voice came from down the hall just as I put my hand to Victor's door. I pulled it back slowly. Elizabeth reached me and pushed the door open slightly further. Victor was sprawled across his bed and from what I could see of him since the sheets were half-pushed off, he was still in this clothes from yesterday evening. His mouth hung open.

"Whiskey and medicines was the only thing to get him to sleep last night," Elizabeth sighed.

I pulled the door closed and said quietly and mournfully as we moved away down the hall, "I know it must seem like I've ruined everything."

Elizabeth looked down and a lock of her fair hair felt in front of her face. She tucked it back. "I… Even before last night, Victor was not the same as he was just two years ago. I could tell he was haunted by something, but it made sense that it was just losing William and Henry." She paused, then continued quietly, "His father had to tell me he was—h-he was having fits where his mind…" She struggled to continue. "He hid that from me. After you were taken I finally saw the madness in him. Nothing can be the same now. I don't know what to think."

She looked so devastated. I felt like a monster. The bridge of my nose stung and I knew tears would follow. Tentatively, I reached out, and when she did not back away from me, I put my arms around her.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. But you deserve to know what he's been doing the last few years, what's been happening to him…"

"I still can't…I can't believe he would deceive me and keep all this—this _work_ —secret from me… It's like I don't know him at all." She sniffed and glanced at me. "He concealed so much… And even though he admitted to what you said…about the—the _man_ …I don't know how to believe it. It's too terrible. It's too horrible." She shook her head jerkily, bringing a hand to her jaw. She wiped of tears with the back of her wrist. "And poor Ernest!" she exclaimed suddenly. "Justine, and now he might be losing a second brother… And he was so happy about our engagement, and now I don't know what will happen…"

"Victor can recover," I said stoutly, though I was not entirely certain if I believed my own words. "His fits come from fear and guilt and grief. Once he comes around to the understanding that there is nothing to fear now, he won't be afraid anymore, and time will heal the guilt and grief. He'll recover, Elizabeth. He has a brilliant mind. He won't waste it in madness. He would say it would be a 'damnably poor use of a brain.'" I made my voice gruffer slightly to imitate Victor, or the haughty, clever Victor we both had known as children. It made Elizabeth chuckle through her thin tears.

"Yes…I hope so. But that doesn't mean things can be the same. If what you say is true about his unkindness…and his lies…" She struggled to keep from crying again, then took my arm in her hand to lead me away from the door. "Let's go away, Chandelle, or we might wake him." We went to her open, airy, window-lined room. All the linens and curtains were white—it suited her.

She began, suppressing a shudder, "You—you said you've met with him. This mons—this man."

"His name is Adam."

Elizabeth gazed at me, her expression twisted in disbelief and trepidation. "Did…Victor name him?"

"No. He chose it. Victor didn't give him a name."

"And he is…n-normal?"

I looked away. "He's a human. But he was put together…strangely. I was so afraid of him at first…" My words trailed off.

"Strangely? Does—does he have two a-arms or something…?"

"No. But he's…huge. With yellow eyes and these scars… He just doesn't look right. It's impossible to explain."

"But he's talked to you? He's civil?"

"Very. A more articulate and gentlemanly young man you could not find."

"Truly?" Her words were hesitant, her face still twisted like something horrible was in the back of her throat.

"Yes. But it does no good to defend him like this. His actions cannot be forgiven."

"This is madness," she whispered faintly. "Just…madness."

I could not help but agree.

…

I woke when a shifting in the bed stirred me. The very dim early grey of the first hints of morning were just beginning to transform the black of my bedroom into silhouettes and outlines, and by that very dim light I saw that Adam had come in to sleep beside me during the night. He was asleep, his mouth and jaw slack, but he twitched slightly in his sleep, dreaming.

A particularly jolting twitch from him pulled me back from drifting back to sleep beside him, and I touched his arm gently. "Adam."

His eyes fluttered open and he turned to look at me, awake all at once.

"You were moving in your sleep," I whispered very quietly. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, sweet." He brushed some hair from my face gently. "And you?"

I shifted across the space between us on the bed to press against his body, and I closed my eyes. Here, all the tension in me could drain away. "Things are difficult. Victor is ill, Elizabeth won't stop crying, Ernest won't see me, and my uncle…" I trailed away, pain like heat licking against my stomach. "He has no warmth for me anymore."

Adam turned and shifted to draw me up against his chest. He rubbed by back with his good arm. "Chandelle…"

"It's not your fault. It's just difficult. I hope things will get better. I asked Uncle if he wanted me to pack and leave, but he told me I could stay. I'm glad for that."

Adam nodded slowly. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

"Don't apologize. Your comfort beside me, that's the best thing you can do to help."

He ran his large, warm hands over me, and I grew drowsy again.

"I have to leave," he murmured in an apologetic tone a few minutes later. "Dawn is come."

I shook my head in protest, pulling myself tighter to him. He relented and stopped trying to disentangle himself.

"'Come death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so,'" he quoted in a murmur.

I turned, sighing with resignation and continued quoting the scene he was referencing. "'It is, it is—hie hence, be gone, away.'" I disentangled myself. "'Window, let day in, and let life out.'"

He was smiling in the dimness. He commented, "An ill-boding story to be emulating."

"Yes…" I touched his face in goodbye. He leaned in to kiss my forehead and I closed my eyes at the touch. I kept his chin in my hand gently, keeping his face close to mine.

My eyes lingered on his lips.

With gentle fingertips, I stroked his bottom lip. His eyes fluttered closed and he groaned softly. "Chandelle…"

I heard his words and his groan between my legs in the rush of warmth they caused. The feeling was delicious, the touch delicious… I ached wanting.

"Be still," I whispered, as I had many days ago when I had kissed his cheeks. Adam made no move. I shifted up slightly to press my lips to his. His mouth was warm and my own lips tingled with sensitivity. I pulled back to look at him. His eyes were squeezed shut as if he were in pain. A slow, shaky sigh issued from his chest.

"Is this…is this what you want?" he managed in a hoarse voice. "Don't think about what I want. Think about yourself. Is this…?"

"This is how I feel," I whispered. "I'm sorry if…"

"Don't," he choked. He caressed my face with his wide hands and pulled me tight against him. "Ah, angel…" He kissed my again, pressing his warm mouth against mine. I began to mold myself against him, but then we both heard a faint clanging from the kitchen downstairs and looked to the door.

"You have to go," I reminded us both, sighing.

"Yes." He kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my eyelids. "I'm sorry." He swung his legs off the bed and made to kiss me again in goodbye, but I shook my head and waved him off. "Adam, go," I whispered. "You have to slip away while it's still safe."

He squeezed my hand once and then left the room like a ghost.

I spent the day in town, shopping and eating at restaurants instead of subjecting Ernest and Victor to my presence in their home. Ernest's hatred cut more deeply and sharply than expected; the boy was young and good, and I loved him. That he might never forgive me for defending his brother's murderer made me ache. I knew if I were him I might feel the same, however. How could I have expected anything different?

I lunched alone beside Lac Leman and shopped at storefronts along the cobblestone main streets. Mount Saleve fenced the city in to the south and the hazy line of the Alps to the southwest. I bought new things for myself, as well as clothes I hoped might fit Adam. In case they didn't, I also bought linen in the same color so I could open up the shirts in the back and sew in extra material. I was fairly sure the new breeches, cloak, and formal waistcoat and coat would fit him, however. I did not know how well he was doing on other items, also, so I bought him a number of cravats, a hunting shirt, a pair of gloves, two more pairs of shoes, and pairs of underdrawers and socks. I almost bought him on impulse a silver pocketwatch like the one my father had, but decided it might seem close to absurd.

When I returned, it was slightly after suppertime. Uncle's servants and footman helped me carry my packages and parcels into my room. I took a small, late supper alone in the sitting room as I read a letter from my father that had come for me earlier that day. After reading it and finishing my meal, I moved to the writing desk and penned him a response. I mentioned there had been some trouble, but I did not go into any detail, and I told him I would tell him about it when we both met together in London.

After supper, I took a short walk around the gardens of the manor, then changed into less formal dress in my rooms and went back to the sitting room on the main floor. I had only seen Uncle in passing in the halls, though I had heard Victor and Elizabeth talking a floor above. It seemed to me that everyone was upstairs retiring for bed. I missed the card playing, music, drinks, and familial cheer that used to color the evenings.

I read the newspapers my uncle had left out on the coffee table in the sitting room. Before they went to bed, one of his maids made me some tea, which I was grateful for. Then the house was quiet. A book remained underneath the vase on the table from yesterday like a standing invitation, and I hoped to see Adam again, though I knew the rest and the peace of his own privacy might be needed. I would not begrudge him that.

Even though my tea had been a soothing chamomile, I felt awake. I thought of my friends in London and wondered what news there was, how Sophia was doing with her new baby, whether or not Oliver had passed his masters tests. I concentrated on finished the newspapers. I decided that once I finished them I would go to bed.

I heard slippers on the hardwood floors—it sounded like my Uncle. I didn't look up from the papers as he came to stand in the doorway.

"Are you waiting?" he asked in a low voice. "For him?"

I looked up at him, unsure how to respond. "I'm just reading before bed."

"Let me join you." He picked up a book from the shelves without even looking at the title and sat across from me. He opened the book to the first page, but mostly just watched me and the door.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable quiet in which I could not concentrate on the papers, I put them aside. "I'm going to bed now, Uncle."

"Sit down."

Slowly, I sat back down, apprehensive.

"I told you I wanted to meet with this creature, Chandelle, and I meant it. I won't let it go another week without understanding the truth of this unholy mess. You talk to him. You can arrange a meeting. I demand you do so."

"Uncle—"

"No. My son seems unable to handle his own concerns at this time, and this entire matter and the truth of it involves my family and loved ones. I will _have_ the truth, Chandelle. And I will have it by my own eyes."

I opened my mouth to try to argue, but Adam's voice from the hall stopped me.

"I will speak with him, Chandelle."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

…

 **U** ncle and I both froze. My eyes darted to him to see if his hand had flown to a weapon of some kind. He seemed to have nothing on him, but his eyes had darted briefly to a china hutch across the room.

"Adam, it's too soon," I murmured to the doorway of the hall. We could see nothing but a shadow thrown against the opposite wall of what part of the dim hallway we could see. "This sort of news… It has to sink in for a time. What you've done…it's still too fresh."

"If I am to have satisfaction of meeting you, come out where I can see you," Uncle told him firmly. His voice was a little hoarse, but still strong and deep.

"No—Adam—he might shoot you like Victor did," I argued quickly, standing. "Adam—don't."

"He doesn't have a pistol, Chandelle. It's alright." Adam's hood was drawn down, casting his face into dark shadow, but he moved into the doorway and seemed to take it entirely up with his size. I glanced at my uncle, who sat rigid in his seat. His face had gone whiter, but he was careful not to let any telling emotion show.

Prompted by custom and education, I gave introductions, though my voice shook. "Uncle, this is Monsieur Adam. Adam, this is my uncle, Monsieur Alphonse Frankenstein."

"It is good to meet you, monsieur," said Adam in a low and calmingly smooth voice, "though I know you cannot say the same."

"I got your letter."

I stared at my uncle and then at Adam. "You left him a letter?"

"Yes," Adam replied to me gently. "I thought perhaps it would be the best way to communicate. In it, I expressed my feelings, my shame, and my wishes as best I could. I'm sorry I could not tell you. You were out in the city all day."

"Elizabeth received one as well," Uncle told me, not taking his eyes from the cloaked figure in the doorway.

"And…Ernest?" I asked.

Adam shook his head. "I did not write to Ernest. I thought perhaps it would do more harm than help."

"Enough," said Uncle impatiently. "You know what I want. I refuse to believe this absurdity until I see the proof. Lower your hood."

Without any further prompting, Adam reached his hands up and pushed off the cloak's hood.

Uncle put a hand to his heart, but sat very still and white, staring. His mouth worked soundlessly. My hands had moved to my mouth. I moved across the room to Adam.

"Go," I murmured. "That's enough. Please. I'm afraid he'll faint. He's not young." My voice was shaking.

"He might have things to say. I'll wait." He attempted a reassuring smile and tucked a bit of my hair behind my ear. My arms were clasped around myself. This was so difficult… I looked at Uncle again. He had not moved.

"Perhaps…sit down, then," I murmured to Adam. "If you must wait."

Adam nodded and moved slowly with me to the divan I had been sitting in before I stood. I sat down beside him.

"Is—is your arm alright?" I asked him.

"It's fine."

"Let me see. Have you rewrapped it today?"

"This morning." He pushed his cloak back across his shoulder so I could see the bandages around his arm. I nodded, satisfied.

"Is there any new pain or change of color?"

"None. No need to worry."

I nodded and looked back at my uncle, who was gazing at us with a grimace that kept rearranging on his face. The lines of his face were deep, his mouth twisted with disgust.

"Well, do you have your proof now?" I snapped at him.

Uncle rubbed his mouth with his hand. His throat worked for a moment, then he answered hoarsely, "I do. He certainly…looks the part." He swallowed with effort. I knew it was bile he was forcing himself to swallow. The same had happened to me when I first saw him. At least he was not screaming.

Adam was also watching Uncle. His expression was unreadable. He told him in a low, understanding voice, "I will leave if you would like."

"And never come back?" Uncle's rough words bit the air.

Adam's expression was weary but resigned. "You will not have to see me again."

"But you'll be—you'll be skulking around my _niece_."

"Monsieur, as difficult as I understand it is for you to believe, the unequivocal truth is I would never harm your niece. I only wish her happiness. If at any point she no longer wishes wants me near her, she needs only to say so. I swear to you that this is the truth." His voice was smooth and low, and its eloquence and refinery I hoped might have a similar effect on my uncle as it had had on me. Such a voice spoke to the civility and gentlemanliness of its owner.

My uncle said nothing, but I was surprised at how he was comparatively keeping his composure under the circumstances. I had expected him to shout and fight and call for the police. It seemed perhaps that this letter that Adam had written had done an impressive job of preparing its reader. If Adam had been able to tell his side of things, it was possible my uncle might be able to call up some tiny measure of empathy.

"I never expect to ever be welcome in this house or among you after the things I have done," Adam said slowly. "I know acceptance is not possible. But it is important—to all of us, I think—that the truth be fully understood. I am giving you the proof you demanded. You, your family, and your son…my…my father…will not be troubled by me again."

Uncle seemed affected by his phrasing. He looked Adam over more closely. Then he eyed me, his mouth working. His eyes were tight with pain and disgust, but his voice was relatively even. "You trust him, Chandelle?"

"Yes, I do."

"There's nothing for it, then. You'll do as you like."

"But do you believe what I told you? About what Victor has done? About what Adam is?"

His jaw worked again, his hands fisted tightly. "I don't think there can be any doubt." His lip curled slightly, but then he rubbed his face with his hand and the look of disgust dissipated somewhat.

"Chandelle, I'd like you to go sit by your uncle, please," Adam told her quietly.

"Why?"

"Do as I ask, please. And remain there."

I obeyed him, confused, and went to sit toward with my uncle whose eyebrows had pulled together tightly. He demanded, "Why? What is this?"

Then we heard the steps that Adam must have heard before us. Ernest's easy voice came from the hall.

"Uncle, is that you? Are you still awake? Curse it, I can't sleep either, not—"

He was standing in the doorframe then, staring, and then he was launching himself across the room at Adam.

" _YOU_! YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" he cried, face contorting with fury, fists swinging. I tried to rise with a cry, but Uncle held my arm very tightly.

"Uncle—Ernest— _stop_!" I cried, but neither of them listened to me, and I watched, my free hand flying to my mouth as Adam even knelt on both knees to give Ernest a better target. The boy had no weapons on him but his own fists and teeth, and he kicked and hit Adam repeatedly while the large, cloaked man knelt and took it silently.

" _Ernest, stop it_!" I shrieked. I began to try to pry my uncle's hands off my arm frantically, but he yanked me hard down onto the divan, more roughly than he had ever been toward me.

"He told you to remain here, Chandelle," he reminded me, watching Ernest beat Adam bloody. A multitude of differing emotions were cycling through his expression.

I stilled. Adam _had_ instructed that. But—

"YOU KILLED WILL AND I'M GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU DEMON! YOU MONSTER! JUSTINE! SHE WAS LIKE MY SISTER! YOUR FAULT! YOU! YOU GODDAMNED FUCKING DEVIL! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I'LL KILL YOU!" Ernest was shouting. His screams and ferocity shocked me deeply. I had never imagined Ernest could behave this way, like a wild boy off the streets. I didn't even knew he _knew_ such language.

"CRYING, YOU BASTARD?! GET UP, GET UP YOU DEVIL'S MONSTER—DEVIL'S—FUCKING—MONSTER—" Every time he shouted, he kicked Adam brutally.

" _STOP THIS INSTANT_!" I screamed. I ripped myself from my uncle and ran to them, raising my arms to force Ernest from Adam. Ernest's hand flew toward my face, but quick as a cobra, Adam's fist closed around the boy's arm, stopping him from striking me.

"Lock the door, if you would be so kind, Chandelle," Adam told me quietly. His face was a mess of blood, but still his voice was even and normal. "The house is waking and Ernest is not finished yet."

"Adam, _no_ …"

"Please do as I ask, dear one."

With a shivering, tortured look at Adam's sincere, tearful eyes, I turned from the two to close and bolt lock the heavy door. People were indeed waking and running through the house—I could hear them now.

"I'm sorry, Ernest," Adam murmured.

Ernest's face contorted and he struck Adam terribly hard on the chest. The boy's own hands were bloody.

"I will never cease to be torturously sorry for the lives I have taken," Adam continued. "For the pain I have caused."

Ernest slapped him furiously, and then again, his face screwed up with tears, a streak of blood across his jaw.

" _How dare you even speak to me_?!" he hissed, his voice ugly and broken. "How dare you come here?! How dare you kneel here and deny me the satisfaction of fighting the monster who murdered my brother. _How dare you pretend to be anything but that monster._ "

"That man is gone, Ernest. This is who I am now."

" _YOU EVIL, UGLY, FUCKING DEMON LIAR!_ " He kicked him.

"Adam, I can't watch this anymore, god, Adam, _please_ ," I begged.

Someone came pounding down the hall, tried the door, and then started banging on it. " _Ernest_?!" Victor called, frantic. " _Ernest, is that you?! Open the door_!"

Uncle stood and commanded every eye in the room.

"Victor, it's alright," he called loudly. The pounding stopped. "Have the servants return to bed. Ernest has been shouting. But he is finished now." Ernest opened his mouth to call to his brother, but his father stopped him with a quick word. "Boy," he said sharply. "Sit down."

Ernest trembled with emotion. "How…how can you…father… _it's here! It's right here!_ _Help me kill it_!"

"Sit down, boy," Uncle ordered again, more strongly this time. He took a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and handed it to his son. "Wipe your face and hands."

I moved toward Adam, but he shook his head sharply, his blood dripping down onto the hardwood floor. More tears spilled from my eyes, but I stopped, and instead I went to sit across from Uncle again.

"He is a man, Ernest," Uncle said in a resigned tone, sitting back down himself. "A murderer, but a man. Your brother Victor dug through fresh graves for half a year in Ingolstadt, brought pieces them back to his lab, preserved them, pieced them together, and animated it all with bursts of electricity. He created this man here before us, who calls himself Adam."

Ernest gazed hatefully at the huge, kneeling man dripping blood in the middle of the room.

Uncle continued, "When he awoke, born, if you will, he was like a babe. When Victor saw he had succeeded at creating life, he fled in horror and madness and self-hatred, leaving this man alone and frightened."

Ernest spat bloodily onto the floor. "He has no fucking soul. _That's_ what Victor saw. Only God can create life."

"That is untrue, as it seems." Uncle leaned forward. "Victor cursed this man every time he approached him. Rejected him and over. And when he approached other people, they shot him and cursed him and hated him." Ernest opened his mouth again, but my uncle's words cut across him. "Quiet! You'll hear this. This man learned to hate people, and he began to take his revenge on Victor. Beginning with William and Justine." Uncle's voice had grown tight with pain. "Then Henry Clerval. Then he planned to kill Chandelle. Then Elizabeth. Until Victor killed himself, and then Adam planned to set himself afire and die lastly." Uncle sat back in his chair. "So why is Chandelle not dead?"

"Because she's a _fool_ ," Ernest spat.

Uncle chewed the side of his cheek, his face dark. "She spoke to him as if he might be something other than a monster. And he became so."

" _You're wrong, papa_!" he cried.

"I am not, Ernest. Half the blame for the deaths in our family is your brother's. He sewed evil, and he reaped it." Uncle's cool and deadly tone struck Ernest silent. His mouth twitched as if about to form words, then thought through them. My heart trembled, my love for my uncle fresh and burning.

"And even while we were all in danger, and Victor knew it, he still did not tell us of his man. Of what he had done. For pride. Do you hear me?"

Ernest shook his head slowly, anger welling again in his face. Denial was plain in his expression.

After a silent moment, Uncle rose and crossed to Adam, still kneeling and dripping onto the floor.

"Go," he said in a low voice. "I hope never to see or hear of you again."

Adam rose, fluidly for the pain he must have been in. "Your words have been undeservedly kind, monsieur," he murmured. His eyes were on Uncle's. "I take my leave."

Uncle turned to me. "It is time for you to return to London, Chandelle." He attempted to soften his expression somewhat, for my sake. I scrubbed my cheeks with the backs of my hands as I stood, sniffling. Adam paused at the door, then unbolted it, and slipped silently away.

"I'll pack tonight," I whispered.

Uncle nodded, and I followed Adam out the door, wincing as I saw the bloodstains on the floor. I went alone up to my room. I wanted to tend to his bruises and wounds, but I felt with a sort of animal instinct that he wanted to be alone tonight. I too wanted to be alone. As I walked away down the quiet hall, I could hear Ernest's muffled sobs as he wept in my uncle's arms.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

" **S** earching for something?"

I tore my gaze from the countryside out the carriage window and smiled a little self-consciously at my carriage companion. "Only thinking, Herr Richter." My German was not anywhere near as good as my French or English, so we had settled on English for conversation earlier in the ride.

"A penny for them, mademoiselle." His accent was thick, but his English was perfect.

"They aren't worth even one, to be sure."

"Oh, I find that hard to believe. You're reading _Leviathan_."

I looked down at the book lying absently open in my lab: Hobbes' new articulation of political science. Even the controversial brilliance of it had not been able to hold my interest.

"Or rather you _were_ , until some thought took your fancy so strongly."

"Yes," I replied rather vaguely. I knew the man was only trying to make polite conversation with the person he found himself traveling with, but I was not in the mood for much of anything social or cheery.

I had not seen Adam since the night my cousin had beat him bloody, and I didn't know if he was alright, or if I would ever see him again. I didn't know if he would even be able to find me should he wish to.

I ached.

"I am thinking only of the place I've left," I said gently. "It is hard to say goodbyes sometimes, no?"

He nodded knowingly. "Ah, yes. Yes, it is."

…

My father's townhouse in London was much, much smaller and narrower than Frankenstein Manor, as housing prices in the city were absurdly high, but that kept it from feeling as lonely as big manors often felt. My arrival back home was earlier than expected, and caused my father's household of five to scramble somewhat.

I was happy to see my own dear household again—Madame Ida, my father's housekeeper; Roy, the butler and valet; Charlotte, Madame's daughter and one of our two housemaids; middle-aged Émilie, our other housemaid; and Monsieur Beaumont, in charge of the kitchen.

Madame Ida was warm but firm, a large, welcoming woman of the temperament that my father said was "good for the health." She was as close as I had to a mother, and she clucked over me when I came in the door.

"Why are you so early, dear? Some trouble?" she asked. Émilie, Charlotte, and Roy busied themselves with bringing in my things.

"My cousin Victor was in very poor health. After everything that happened in the family, the doctors think his mind is a little unstable." I grimaced. "I thought it would be best to leave the family to care for him."

"Lord," Ida murmured sympathetically. "That's hard. I'm so sorry, dear." She took some bags from Roy. "Now, come upstairs—you're tired from traveling." I followed her up the stairs while she continued talking. "We put dust covers on your things, I only received word from you coming back early just yesterday—the post you sent from Strasbourg. You sent it at the very beginning—but it only got in just slightly ahead of you. I've been doing my best to get ready. I sent Beaumont out for more food for the kitchen. How was the crossing over?"

"Perfectly fine. Rainy, of course. I'll miss Geneva's weather." It was drizzling as we spoke.

Ida waved an arm at the ceiling. "'Course you will! Who wouldn't? Damned English grey. Grey and grey and grey." She grunted as she put my bags on the floor beside my bed. The bed looked freshly made, but the floor not freshly swept. Ida was eyeing it as well. "I'll bring Charlotte up," she said.

Roy bustled in with more bags. "Miss me too much, eh, miss? Had to hurry home?" He grinned.

"Roy, I just could not do without you."

He laughed heartily as he left the room. Ida sent a look after him, and I could not help but smile.

"We'll talk later, now, dear," Ida told me. "Once all your things are up, you get some rest. We'll all let you alone until supper."

"Thank you, Ida," I sighed, grateful.

…

My friends and acquaintances barely allowed me to settle in one night before they began calling on me.

Sophia's baby was an absurdly chubby little thing, but in full, rosy health. She herself still looked two terms pregnant and was too exhausted to even share the choicest gossip, which was mildly shocking. Oliver was in the very end of his series of masters of law tests and too busy to call, but he promised to do so as soon as possible.

Eleanor brought over new books and store-bought baked goods and wanted to know all about Geneva in the summer. She was a bit disappointed that I had not seen much of the city, but the little shopping and sightseeing I had done satisfied her, as she knew I had gone to commiserate with my family. We traded books and she filled me in on everything I had missed in town.

My father wrote to tell me he was in Marseille at present, but would arrive the week I had actually been expected to return.

The new semester did not begin for another few weeks, but I found I was not without things to do. I tucked away the clothes I had bought for Adam in still-wrapped packages in my closet, returned the visits my friends had paid me, and wrote to my father and my uncle that I had arrived safely. Eleanor lived in an all-women finishing school dormitory alone in her own room, and enjoyed any excuse to leave it, so she and I bought books, attended local lectures, and spent time shopping for the newest fashions so we would make the desired statement in our new classes.

Six days after arriving back home, I noticed one morning a bit of rolled paper wedged between my tall, ornate bedroom window and its sill. My heart took off and began to hammer even before I had wrenched up the window and grabbed it. As a drizzly breeze wafted into my room, I sat on my bed, unrolling the paper.

Just as it had the very first night I had received a note from him, it read in handsome script, _Tonight_.

I pressed the paper to my chest, fighting tears.

Adam was alright. He would come see me tonight. I would see him tonight. Touch him, comfort him, kiss him. Fall asleep in his arms. I pressed the script to my cheek, then gently put the paper into the coals of my bedroom fireplace.

I wished he had just appeared in my bed next to me instead of leaving a note for tonight—the anticipation and yearning made the day crawl by. I asked Roy to take me to see the summer fair just for something to entertain me, and I watched the madness and festivities from my carriage. Still, evening could not fall fast enough. I forced myself to eat my dinner slowly like a lady and not a wolf.

Directly after dinner, I asked for a tray of tea, cakes, and sweets to be brought to my room so I might save them for Adam. I nestled down into bed to wait with a romance novel Eleanor had gifted to me. Despite myself, I actually fell under the spell of it, and was engrossed in the story when my bedroom window suddenly jerked upwards. I jumped.

The window rose further, large hands shoving it to its furthest extent.

I watched, my heart fluttering and then pounding almost noisily on the ceiling of my breastbone. Adam squeezed his way through the tall window, and then turned and pulled it back down. The frame made noise of protest, so he wiggled it faintly and then pulled more gently. When it was down, he made straight for the rolled towel on the upholstered bench at the end of my bed and began to rub his hair with it.

"You're wet," I said softly. Then I internally kicked myself. _'You're wet'?! That's what I say to this man after an entire month of fear and aching and no word?_ I sat up with a jerk. "Adam," I whispered. "Adam—Adam _darling_ —are you _alright_?! God, are you _alright_?!" I threw my legs out of bed and almost ripped my nightgown running across the room to him.

He caught me in his arms as I had hoped he would, the towel cast carelessly aside. His black wool was covered in a fine wet drizzle, though he had somewhat managed to dry his hair. I buried my face in his neck. He smelled of wood and sweat, but no longer of pine. He smelled of city smoke now. I missed that other part of his smell. It made me feel like crying. That, and everything else, and suddenly I was half-sobbing in his arms.

"Shh, love, shhh. You'll wake the house. I'm fine. I'm fine, sweet girl." The French was so lovely to hear again. His voice was so beautiful to hear again. Smooth and deep as the falling of night. I clutched myself to him as tightly as I could and held in my sobs, though I made a soft whimper.

"Adam, I've been so worried," I managed. "Why didn't you come to see me? Or write me? I thought you could have _died_! What Ernest did… God, I _died_ worrying! Do you not want to see me anymore now?"

He had gathered me up onto his arms easily and was carrying me to the bed. "How can you think so?" he murmured. "How could you think I wouldn't want to see you again? If anything, it should be you not wanting to see _me_. After everything you went through because of me and the way I spoke to you—"

"I don't care—I don't care," I hushed him. "I only care about you. Are you still hurt?" I pulled back some to investigate his face. Some bruising was still a faint yellowish green, but he looked well.

"I waited until I was better."

I put his face in my hands. "You didn't let me _comfort_ you! For what _my_ _family_ did!"

He turned his head to kiss one of my palms gently. "I needed this time, Chandelle. These were wounds I wanted to lick alone, if you'll forgive me."

I clutched myself tight to him. "But to not send even a note…"

"I thought you knew I would be alright. It was too complicated, with you traveling and all those cities. And…I wasn't sure if I would be welcome again."

"What do you mean? You thought I might not want to see you?"

"I thought that was a distinct possibility."

"Well then you're a fool."

"I have never argued otherwise."

I stared at him gazing at me, his mouth slightly grim. His handsome nose, his dark hair. His quick, tender, heartbreaking eyes. "Adam," I murmured in perfect seriousness, "I'm in love with you."

He was silent. He did not take his eyes from mine. Then he looked away, tears welling. To my confusion, his mouth only grew grimmer and slowly he shook his head.

"You can't mean that and you mustn't say things like that that you don't mean to me. It's unkind." His voice was very low. "It's difficult enough to kiss you, to share your bed… It makes me forget."

"I have already entirely forgotten."

"Chandelle, please, we must _think_ —"

"About marriage? About children? About how you cannot give me either of them?"

His throat worked as he swallowed, agony in his eyes. "Yes."

"How insulting that you think I have thought nothing about it. Adam, I assure you, I _have_ given it a great deal of thought. I have thought about every aspect of you, everything I've seen and heard and felt and everything I might have and go without to be with you. And I am here telling you _I am in love with you_. I don't understand the how or why. But that is the truth. I don't say it to be unkind, I don't say it like a schoolgirl of her first beau, and I don't say it without _full understanding_ of what it is I am _saying_. _I am in love with you._ Do you need it in Italian? Te amo. Or backwards? You love I. _I love you_ and only you, and I don't see it changing, and I demand that you accept all this that is inside of me, or I may very well explode…"

He was kissing me then, his tears wetting my face all over. I sucked in a gasp and molded myself to him, his warm mouth on mine the most perfect bliss.

"Unless…" I managed breathlessly, "unless you don't love _me_."

"You're a fool."

"Please, Adam…"

He moved his wide hands to my shoulders and moved me back away from him so he could gaze at me. "Hear it, then. It seems insufficient to me to confine what I feel for you into those inadequate words, but you must know…surely you _must_ know that I love you as well. With all the arbor of my soul, with all the strength in my body and thoughts in my mind, I love you. I am _devoted_ to you. I am yours, always. And your love in return is… There are no words to express how overwhelmingly incredible that is to me. I never imagined myself deserving such a thing. It is more than I could ever have asked for."

Tears were streaming down my face. I felt such a deep tenderness down in my chest, like I had become larger or brighter or something more than myself. I loved him so much I felt faint with it. So much that I wanted to sob and sob and never stop. I wanted to kiss the floor. Kiss the sky. Kiss God Himself.

His arms wrapped around me again and his mouth met mine, and if I had died I would not have noticed.

….

….

 _Author's Note to Readers:_

 _The remaining chapters of this story are designed as a long series of epilogue chapters; snapshots of the future stretching from only a few days later to three years later._

 _Thank you & enjoy. _

_L &P_

.


	15. Chapter 15

…

 _Author's Note to Readers:_

 _The remaining chapters are designed as a long series of epilogue chapters; snapshots of the future stretching from only a few days later to three years later._

 _Thank you & enjoy,_

 _L &P_

…

Chapter 15

" **D** id you take a lover in Geneva?"

I dropped my pamphlet to the floor of the theater, startled. Oliver watched me, one eyebrow lifted, and I turned in my seat to make sure no one might have heard him. We were early to the show, and luckily no one was anywhere near us. Buying myself a moment, I leaned over to pluck my pamphlet back up from the crimson carpet and then set my eyes on him. " _Oliver_."

"Oh, come, there isn't any false modesty between us, Moreau," he said. His expression was both amused and interested, his profile beside me striking in his black and white formal suit and coat.

"What in God's name has led you to make such a conjecture?"

He looked back and forth between my eyes, a smile playing at his lips. "You came back happier. Your walk, your smiles. And I can't write it off to the glow of family reunion and harmony because you went to Geneva to _commiserate_ with them over the death of your cousin and even returned early because the family was so miserable." He crossed his arms casually, glancing at the theatre patrons now trickling in, and then looked back at me. "We both know it's not out of the realm of possibility. You have means, and that sort of thing is becoming more common these days. It's not just rich men who go out and have liaisons. Modesty doesn't have to be conserved as long as discretion is—and you know you can count on mine. You haven't spread gossip about any of _my_ little adventures, and so I owe you at least four times over already. But I think you _do_ owe me the details, eh? I'm not the only one with these suspicions. Sophia agrees with me."

"Sophia. This would be just the sort of gossip to come out of her exhaustion-addled brain," I replied crisply.

Oliver gave me a look. "You're deflecting. I just passed all my exams, Moreau. That's not going to work."

"Well, you're barking at the wrong tree this time, o genius Master of Laws."

Oliver sighed. "No fun."

"People are coming in."

"Does that mean we'll continue this interrogation another time?" He grinned.

" _No_."

"Ah—protesting too much!"

I swatted him with the pamphlet and he laughed. The theatre darkened slowly as more and more people began finding their seats and Oliver's attention was claimed by some acquaintances. I watched him absently, chewing on my tongue. I had no idea my manner had changed enough to give anyone pause. Granted, Oliver and Sophia had known me ever since I had arrived in London four years ago. We were close, and they would be the ones to notice changes if there were any. Eleanor would notice, too. And definitely Ida. Possibly my father when he arrived.

I had to be more careful. I didn't want rumors of an affair in another country muddying my flawless reputation. Luckily, I trusted all of these people to have my best interests in mind. Sophia I was perhaps most worried about. She sometimes could not help herself from talking. Oliver I knew was sincere in his promises of discretion. He could be a trifle snobbish at times, but to his friends he was kind, genuine, and even sincerely humble on rare occasions—a rarity in a man of his position. Oliver had an academic air, but was handsome despite it. His mother was a famed London beauty, but his wealthy father was Parisian, which had bonded the two of us initially. I had indeed been witness to many of his romantic escapades and had always kept his confidence. He had an unassuming sense of humor I enjoyed, a streak of rebelliousness against the traditional structured norms of propriety in society which I enjoyed even more, and our friendship had always lingered on the edge of flirtatiousness, which had exhilarated me—especially in my younger years at school.

The opera was moving, though a bit long for my taste. I was stiff in my seat by the time it was finished. When the lights were being lit again, Oliver turned to me, catching my eye and making a groan as he stretched. "Bit long, eh?"

"Agreed. Their alto is excellent, though—what is her name?" I scanned the pamphlet. "Ms. Lleida Ilgorno…"

Oliver nodded his agreement and we continued discussing the performance as we trickled out slowly with the rest of the crowd.

"Wine and socializing in the parlor room off the lobby?" he queried.

"If you'd like."

"I actually think I could forgo it tonight. What are your own thoughts?"

"I'm with you."

"Ta. Allons-y." He smiled and held out his arm and I took it. He led us out of the theatre and to his carriage.

"How was the performance, sir?" asked his footman politely.

"Delightful, Will. Thought not nearly as much as the company." He threw me a smile as he helped me inside.

"An incorrigible charmer, isn't he, Will?" I teased.

Will chuckled. "Aye, miss."

Oliver slid in on the other side. "Moreau, have you taken a look at Hobbes' _Leviathan_ yet?"

"Finished it already."

He smiled hugely. "Of course. Why bother to ask. We should discuss it—and there's a lecture on it Thursday night in the main hall."

"I'm be there. Dinner beforehand?"

"Yes, but if you bring Eleanor, schedule it twenty minutes before the time you actually want to start eating to get all her complaints out of the way."

"Don't be rude." I slapped his arm lightly.

He chuckled. "Are you going to the dance at the Rumont's in two weeks? I know you don't particularly care for them."

"My father will be back by then and he wants to go. He'll be my escort."

"Sophia probably won't be able to come and Eleanor isn't in their circle." He frowned. "You'll be a bit alone."

"You'll be there."

"We can't _only_ dance with each other, and when I'm away, we can't have you by yourself. Ah—my sister will be there. I know Adelaide's young, but she'd love to be your company and follow you around if you let her."

"That sounds nice, actually. I don't give her enough time usually. Tell her she'll be my special companion since Sophia has to miss it."

"She'll love that." His eyes were warm. "That's sweet of you."

"She's a sweet girl."

"A miracle, considering my mother's temperament."

"Cheers to piss-poor mothers."

He laughed at my language. "Cheers, love."


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

…

 **I** had finished tailoring Adam's shirts finally, and he tried them on in the dim glow of the lamps we had lit in my bedroom late at night.

"Put it all on," I whispered, smiling. "It looks good!"

"It's wasted on me, Chandelle."

"That's not true."

He grunted softly, pulling on the coat.

"I'll teach you how to fashion the cravat," I told him, picking up one from one of the boxes.

"I'm most grateful for the underthings, to be honest," he muttered.

"You have to bend down—I'm not tall enough." Adam knelt to one knee as he buttoned his coat and I tied the cravat. "The trick is _loose_ ," I murmured. "You wrap and pull it out here, then flatten it and then tuck it. It's not too tight, is it?"

"I don't honestly know."

"Well, it looks perfect to me." I stepped back. I had cut his hair for him two nights ago—rather well, if I could say so myself—and he was always clean-shaven because he did not seem be able to grow facial hair. But I knew I thought he looked good only because I was used to his face. In truth it was like nightmare dressed in a fine suit. "With a layer of makeup, all that might look odd about you would be your eyes."

"Chandelle…"

"It's important that we know how normal it's possible for you to look."

"But not tonight."

"Not tonight," I agreed. He folded me into his arms.

"Thank you for the clothes."

"Of course. I grocery shopped for you as well." I gestured to the bag of bread, hard chesses, sturdy vegetables, and cured meats I had picked up for him. He had found a spacious church attic only a couple streets away, although I was looking into other arrangements.

"Now you need your sleep." He carried me to the bed, then stepped away to begin carefully undressing. I watched as he removed his outer layers, down to his new shirt and breeches. He pulled of the shoes and then climbed in beside me. I moved into his arms and against his chest into an embrace that had already become part of me—and my favorite way to fall asleep.

He stroked my hair gently. "How was your day, my love?" he murmured.

"Irritating, actually. Oliver and I argued over geometric proofs in Hobbes' work after the lecture. I made the better argument, but he won't admit to being bested. I can't stand that about him."

"You both have more pride than any sane person should."

That made me smile. I _was_ tired, though. I could feel it around my eyes. I nodded off against his chest.

It was completely dark when I felt his arms lift from me and I whispered, "Wait." I reached out for a candle and lit it clumsily in the blackness. The flame flickered to life and he flinched slightly as the candlelight illuminated his scarred features. But when he turned his gaze to me, there was only soft adoration in his face.

I reached up sleepily to brush my hand through some of his black hair, and I let my fingers drift across his cheek as I lowered my hand. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. "I love you, Chandelle."

"As I love you," I murmured, my eyelids closing. "Stay with me…"

I felt his warm forehead press against mine. "Always," he whispered.

…

My father Monsieur Moreau and I took tea in our living room in the late afternoon after he arrived home. He sat in his favorite leather armchair and me beside him on the edge of a pillow-coated sofa.

Ida had made his favorite peanut butter biscuits. He always tried to pretend he wasn't mad for them, but would always slowly devour an entire plate of the things whenever they were in front of him. He was doing so now.

He looked travel-worn around the eyes, but was as immaculately and formally dressed as always. Not a hair out of place.

"No one could catch your eye in Marseille, papa?" I asked him, nibbling on a biscuit myself.

He frowned. I did not usually ask about his utter lack of a romantic life. "I'm not young anymore, _ma fille_."

"Age only matters if you're a woman looking for a husband. You have all the selection you could want."

"We shan't talk about me before I've heard of your trip. You wrote to say that Victor took ill and you thought it best to leave the family to care for him. What happened?"

I pulled at my thumb. His eyes flicked down to me fiddling with my fingers, and tightened slightly. He knew the signs of my discomfort.

"Did they mistreat you? Was there trouble?" He sat forward in his chair, his face darker.

"No no. No one mistreated me."

He calmed. "Then what aren't you saying?"

"My trip has been very complicated. Sometimes things happen to one so quickly, and one doesn't quite know how to explain it… I'm not comfortable yet explaining all the details. You remember Victor, your nephew?"

"Yes. A bright boy."

"He is a man now and he has been spending his time dabbling in science he ought not to have experimented with. I went to be with them after the deaths of William and Justine, but when I arrived Victor too was a cause for grief in the household. Mentally he was not well. I believe he will recover with time, but…it was best I left the family alone."

"Do they need help? Money? Specialists?"

"No, no."

"Does Alphonse know all this?"

"Yes. He is the reason things were not worse than they were…"

"A good head, that man. And Ernest? And Victor's fiancé—Elizabeth?"

"Elizabeth is alright. Ernest is very upset."

"At Victor?"

I rubbed my thumb. "At me as well."

"Why, for God's sake?"

"I…exposed Victor."

He sat back in his chair. "His mental problems, you mean?"

"That…and his work."

"Which you won't explain."

"Not right now."

He was frowning deeply. "I assume you have good reason not to." I appreciated his trust in me.

"And there is one more thing, papa," I said.

"Yes?"

"I met someone in Geneva."

He looked at me a long moment. Then he raised his voice to call for Roy. "Roy! Émilie!"

Émilie pushed open the door. "Monsieur?"

"Brandy, Émilie. A tall glass, with ice."

"Yes, monsieur." She curtsied and disappeared from the doorway.

His gaze returned to me. "Just a moment, dear."

I had the impulse to laugh. I rubbed my mouth and kept silent while Émilie returned. Our dusty decanter of fine brandy and a tall glass filled with ice and some brandy already poured took up the small tray. Émilie placed it on the side table, and as she left the room, my father was already sucking the liquid down. I waited. When there was only perhaps a quarter left in the glass, papa sucked his teeth with an uncharacteristic noise and then prompted, "Alright. Tell me."

"I hope you aren't holding out for something anywhere _close_ to conventional."

Hearing this, Papa held up his finger again. In two large swallows he drained the last of his glass. Then he said, "You're going to be the death of your papa, Chandelle. What is he, an actor? A gardener? Don't _tell_ me he's a Calvinist."

His joke made me smile a little. "He's not someone I could present to you…as things are. And not someone the public would accept. He's an excellent man, but his face is…frighteningly ugly."

A laugh burst out of my father in a shocking wheeze. He was not usually so undignified. "Ugly, then," he sighed. "An ugly man. Well. Had to be something untoward, or you would never have been satisfied with yourself. I kept _hoping_ it would be Mr. Oliver Bales, but as they say, making plans is the best way to make God laugh… But Chandelle, dear, I hope you know that an ugly husband means ugly children."

I was shaking with chuckles I was trying to smother with my hands, but his comment sobered me somewhat. "I'm not going to have his children, papa. And so I feel guilty, and so I want you to find a wife and force obnoxious babies onto the family."

He was wheezing again. " _Christ_."

I knew he was still nursing the wound my mother gave him so many years ago—an old wound, but still powerful enough to steer him away from remarrying, it seemed.

"Well, dear," he sighed theatrically, "I'll take you to Paris or Marseille with me sometime, and if you think any of the mademoiselles hounding me are actually in it for more than the money, I'll marry the woman on the spot. I've already investigated the prospects in Lyon and found no one worth the trouble."

"And she must be a Frenchwoman?"

He gave me a look that said plainly _Of course_.

"As long as she doesn't try to bully me in anything," I said.

"I don't think you've ever let another woman bully you in your life, dear."

"I still don't appreciate the attempts. And perhaps not a stupid woman. I should like to be able to respect my little siblings, and if they're half a moron…"

"They'll be half a moron no matter what. They'd be full moron if she's an idiot as well."

His self-deprecation was intended to make me laugh and succeeded. He grew a bit more serious. "But why don't you want children?"

"The factors here are complicated… I may want children someday, but the man I want to marry cannot give them to me."

He frowned. "Well…there are many children without families. And if you take an orphan as your own, you don't risk your life in childbirth." I knew he did not relish the idea of adopting, which in many circles was seen as a mark of shameful impotence, but was putting the option on the table for my sake.

I nodded absently, and then focused again. "About the marriage. Would you help me with the handling of it? I should like to be publically understood to be married without the public wedding."

He rubbed his temple. "I am trying not to worry about you. You aren't being a total fool, are you?"

"It's difficult, papa, but it's the right path for me."

"Alright, let me think." He continued to massage his temple. "Perhaps next year when you're finished with your graduate studies… If you're still sure about things then, we'll go on a trip together and you shall come back married. But I should like to meet him before then."

"I'll arrange that."

"Good. Does he have any money?"

"None—but refined manners, I promise."

"Well, that's something."

"He is a recluse, papa. I adore the household you've set up for me here…but I may be obliged to move somewhere more private. I've been looking through the papers for places—"

"This house would fetch excellent rent." His eyes were thoughtful and resigned. "Let us make it your income property, and find you a private place with a lawn. We'll transfer the staff. I wouldn't separate you and Madame now for all of London, anyway, and the rest have known you a while—they're more loyal than fresh staff would be. Such a place would require more hands, though."

"I don't think so. He'd be able to help keep the house. The less people the better, I think."

"Alright, then." He rubbed his jaw. "I suppose life isn't fun if it is easy, no?"

"Always my philosophy, papa."

"Speaking of, Marseille was buzzing about Hobbes. What is your own take?"

I launched into discussion of political theory while my father called for more tea.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

…

 **I** made my entrance into the Rumont's ballroom on my father's arm. I had attended two dozen or so similar events in my life, and so I barely glanced around at the décor and crowd. I knew I would see mostly the same faces.

My favorite part of this type of social gathering was usually entering and leaving with my father when we would mutter comments to each other under our breath in rapid French.

We kept with tradition.

"Good, the Baleses are already here."

"Oliver told me they'd be arriving at six sharp." I smiled at an acquaintance. "God, my face already hurts from smiling."

"Such a liar."

"Alright, but it _will_. It always does after these things."

"You are an absurd hypocrite. You love a good dance."

"I don't love how drunk the man of the house already looks."

"Rumont will be snoring against the arm of a sofa by nine o'clock, mark me."

"I raise you eight o'clock. Look at how ruddy his face is. Ten pounds on no later than eight."

"Done. He hasn't started in on the food yet. That will waylay him."

"Abram's wife is already showing," I noticed under my breath.

"That babe will be early."

"You mean perfectly on time for its actual conception date."

"But of course."

"Two of my professors are here," I muttered. "I hate that. 'Look at me, the show pony.'"

"Strike up a conversation about the lectures you and Oliver are so bent on attending, and you won't seem like a pony anymore," he replied easily.

"There are a fair few I don't recognize, though. God, is that the Hughes' little girl? She's out already? She used to be so little."

"You're getting older, dear."

"God."

"But you're right—there are new faces. I'll be obliged to meet _all_ of them. Console yourself knowing you only have to meet their children. Maybe I should become a recluse like your beau."

"' _Sakes_ —keep your voice down," I hissed.

"Here come the Baleses. Oliver gets more handsome every year."

" _You_ can marry him, papa."

"His sister's blooming very lovely, too. Both of them so like their mother in their faces."

"Luckily not in her temperament. Adelaide is going to be my main companion tonight—I've already promised Oliver."

"Good. Teach her a thing or two, will you? Some eyes in this room are already looking at her like sharks eyeing chum."

"I'm sure the girl would be delighted to know she resembles dead fish."

"You know what I mean."

I was laughing when the Bales family reached us. Oliver took both my hands in his and pressed in for a kiss on each cheek.

"You're stunning, Chandelle."

"You as well, of course."

"Daniel!" Mrs. Bales simpered at my father, holding out her hands to him.

"Rose," he greeted with warmth I knew was feigned, though it did not sound it. He kissed her cheeks, then turned to her husband. "Art, so glad to see you."

Mr. Bales clapped on the shoulder fondly. "How was Marseille, Daniel? Things still going well for you? Did you call on the Laroches while you were there?"

They drifted away from their children as I was kissing Adelaide's cheeks.

"Ready for some fun, love?" I asked her.

She nodded, feigning poise, but I could see the nervousness in her wide brown eyes. I loved Oliver's family's eyes. Most of the French and English upper crowd had light eyes—blue being the most favored—but there was something so warm and doe-like about the Bales' deep brown eyes.

I touched her nose. "Stick close to me darling. I won't leave you alone."

"Thank you, Chandelle."

"Whose idea was your dress line, Addy?"

She looked rather impolitely down toward her own breasts. "Mother's. She says the lower line is in style now."

"I know one thing that never goes out of style, sweet, and that is modesty," I murmured, stepping close and subtly shifting the straps beneath the neckline of her dress to bring the line an inch and a half further up. "Something your mother herself could learn."

"I agree," Oliver nodded, mouth set, "but I needed someone with knowledge of how to adjust these things… The complications of women's formalwear are entirely beyond me."

Addy giggled a little. I smiled, and Oliver took one of my arms and one of his sister's and walked us deeper into the crowd.

"Oliver," I said through a smile at an acquaintance across the room, "my father and I made bets on the time of evening that Mr. Rumont would end up snoring on a sofa. My money is on no later than eight o'clock, and my father's is on nine. Do you want in on it?"

Oliver laughed deeply, his eyes crinkling, and his sister covered her mouth with her hand as she had a fit of shocked giggles.

"He hasn't had his dinner yet, Moreau," he replied. "I've seen him rally with food before. I think your father will have the best of you."

"Tosh. The man can barely stand."

I tossed Addy a grin when I heard giggles take her again. Oliver smiled and warmly greeted people that had come up to us to socialize. I made smalltalk with him, and Addy answered their patronizing questions about her skill at the piano and her drawing. As we moved through the room, it was a parade of greetings and smalltalk as we met with all the people it would be unwise to slight and were introduced to all new people of consequence.

Space had already been cleared for dancing, and the better part of an hour later, we were almost finished with all the necessary greetings. I patted Addy's hand on my arm.

"Addy, this is the plan. What you never want is to be standing alone, so if you get asked to dance, I'm going to go find my father or Oliver, and if I get asked to dance, you'll go find Oliver or your mother, alright?"

"Yes. I see Maria as well—she's my age. I could go stand with her, too."

"Exactly."

"Moreau, are you hungry?" Oliver asked. "We had a bit of a snack back at the house, but not much."

"Yes, I could eat."

"Let's sit for a bit. There are some good people over here." He steered us to the end of a table where many of his collegiate friends and a couple of their wives were sitting. I knew a couple of them and made a bit of smalltalk, but then I brought Addy slightly away so we could eat together.

"Are you going to have any wine?" she asked me.

"I usually have one only glass, love. Would you like to have it with me?"

"Yes please."

I poured us small glasses.

"I always got sick talking of my skills at the pianoforte at these things when I was your age," I told her.

She nodded. "It's all anyone asks about. They just say how pretty I am and then ask about my skills. If they asked what I liked to do, I could tell them gardening, or about how I've been to almost _every_ art galla and museum in the country. I can even play poker with Oliver and his friends—and Oliver says I'm good."

I smirked. "Now that _would_ be good conversation."

Addy was unconsciously copying the way I was sitting and placing my hands. It stroked my ego and it was very sweet.

My gaze wandered away. "Yes, they always tell you how lovely you are. It's the same for me. But beauty is a currency that deserts you, and so it should never be your only virtue." I scanned the eyes that sometimes wandered across the room to her and me. "Addy, do you see young Mr. Benjamin Avery over there to the right with his friends?"

"Yes."

"He looks over at you sometimes. He's handsome, isn't he?"

"Yes, but…Oliver told me to stay away from him."

"I'm very glad that he did. But did he tell you why?"

"No."

"He should have. You're almost a woman now, and you should know these things so you can master this world instead of being mastered by it. Benjamin Avery beat and raped a woman off the street three weeks ago."

Addy's hand flew to her mouth.

"His family is covering it up and he won't be punished by the law for it," I continued. "Not even everyone here even knows about it. If he asks you to dance, tell him your brother has the next one. If he tries to engage you in conversation, make an immediate excuse to leave. Don't worry about being a little rude. Giving offense is far preferable to giving the impression you might be easy prey."

Addy's eyes had grown very wide.

"You have to learn to really _see_ at these events," I continued, my eyes scanning the crowd. "To see what's really going on. To not be distracted by pretty faces or false courtesy. It took me a while to learn—longer than I like, now that I look back on it." I took a bite of a tart. "Do you see Mr. Abrams with his new wife?"

"Yes. Mother said their wedding was lovely."

"Lovely and hurried. Her dress helps to hide it, but you can already tell that she's pregnant."

"She's pregnant?"

"And she's showing enough to make it perhaps almost two or three months since conception. As their wedding was only a few weeks ago…"

"Oh."

"Yes."

Addy's eyes traveled around the room, trying to see things too, but I knew she was only seeing beautiful people in beautiful clothes.

"You know Mr. Church, right?" My voice had dropped slightly. "He knows your brother, I think. He's only a few years older than Oliver. He's talking in a circle of friends right now not too far from us. There's a woman to his right and a woman to his left."

"Mrs. Church. And I think the other woman's name is Miss Hart, I want to say. We were introduced at a dinner a while ago."

"I didn't know her name, but I can tell you a lot about her just from watching her. Watch the two women for a little while. Watch them when they look at Mr. Church and watch them when they glance at each other."

Addy's eyes remained riveted on the three while I ate more of my tart.

At length, Addy offered, "They don't like each other."

"How can you tell?"

"I don't know…maybe in the way they're standing. Mrs. Church especially is upset. It's in her mouth."

"Good. And the other woman?"

"She doesn't look at Mr. Church as much, but _he_ looks at her more than his wife."

"Good eyes. I would bet my money that he's having an affair with her, and his wife knows about it. And they know she knows."

"Goodness."

"I _also_ know a boy is about to ask you to dance."

Addy's face split into a surprised smile. "Who? How?"

"Be patient, sweet. Don't look around. He's been glancing at you and now he's headed over to make introductions with his sisters."

Not twenty seconds later, a young man and his two older sisters approached us. Addy and I stood to greet them. I knew one of his sisters.

"Tessa—wonderful to see you." We curtsied and the boy bowed.

"And you, Chandelle! This is Oliver's sister, isn't it?"

"Yes, this is Adelaide. Adelaide, this is Tessa Weatherford and her sister and brother."

"Effie and Grant."

Effie curtsied again and Grant bowed to Adelaide.

"Pleasure to meet you," said Adelaide sweetly.

"What a beautiful name," complimented Effie.

"You are so pretty, Adelaide," said Tessa. "I am certain you will be even more beautiful than your mother."

"Thank you." Addy and I shared a glance.

"Adelaide, if you are not otherwise engaged, I would be honored if you would dance the next with me," said the young Grant.

"I am not otherwise engaged." As they spoke, the music for the next dance began, and he took his offered arm and he led away.

Tessa took her emptied seat and Effie sat on my other side, pouring themselves some wine.

"Sweet girl. Now, how have you been, Chandelle? Weren't you traveling?" asked Tessa.

"Yes, I was in Geneva visiting my mother's family. I had beautiful weather for the trip. Have you done any traveling this summer?"

"Not much, just north to Bedford for a little while. Still taking women's education classes at King's?"

"What little they offer. The rest of I'm receiving from tutoring."

"So exciting! So many things are changing. Will they give you a degree?"

"I'm going to apply in the spring for one, but I have little hope of it. The change is a little slow for my taste."

"Effie is enrolled in some of the King's classes, aren't you, Effie?"

"Yes. I'm especially interested in ma—"

"I saw you on Oliver Bales' arm." Tessa smiled. "Seems like you always _are_ —for how many years now? Four?"

"Four. We're close friends." I kept her gaze unaffectedly.

"Will we ever hear wedding bells ringing?"

"All summer, if you're close to St. Paul's."

"Oh, you know what I mean."

"As it is the man's task to propose such a thing, perhaps it's Oliver you should be asking." My tone was light. I was leaving her very unsatisfied, I knew.

"He's a terribly wonderful catch. They're going to start vying from all corners."

"They have been for years now." _And none of them have gotten him. And I'm still here. Make what you will of that, Tessa._

"I heard rumors that he's not exactly saving himself for marriage." She smirked widely.

"If such things were true, he would hardly discuss them with me."

"I don't see Sophia. She's still on bedrest?"

"She was never on bedrest, but she can't leave the baby."

"And the other girl—Ellen? Do the Rumonts not know her?"

"Eleanor," Effie corrected her softly.

I kept a cool expression though Tessa's words were meant to be arrogant commentary on Eleanor's lack of invitation to his social circle. "You must mean Eleanor, my closest friend. Yes, I'm afraid the Rumonts don't have the privilege of an acquaintance with her."

Tessa smiled, the expression empty. It more closely resembled the bearing of teeth.

Oliver appeared suddenly, his friends trailing behind him, and the weighty atmosphere between me and the sisters was forced to dissipate. He bowed politely to them.

"Miss Weatherford and Miss Weatherford." He smiled. "Are you having a good evening?"

"Quite," Tessa replied. "And yourself, Mr. Bales?"

"Wonderful, though it would be even better if Miss Moreau would give me a dance." He extended his hand, I took it immediately, and then we were away.

"I appreciate that, Oliver."

"I can always tell when you're about to start carving someone's eyes out with your dessert spoon."

"She was laying insult on Eleanor's connections."

"Harpy."

"And pressing me for news about your love life. I acted surprised that she would even assume you would share such things with me."

"Thank you. She's in for disappointment."

"Not your type."

"Too many fangs."


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

…

 **W** e danced, and while we did, we both kept an eye on Addy and Grant, who it seemed had asked her for a second dance. Addy excused herself after, and joined with the two of us. She was pink and happy.

"You're a lovely dancer, Addy," I complimented sincerely.

"Mother says women should learn to dance even before the piano."

"You know, I actually think I _agree_ with that."

Addy giggled. We all got some water. Almost immediately, more people claimed Oliver's attention and he threw us an apologetic smile as he was towed away. I took Addy's arm and we went to the side of the room, rather out of sight.

"Your brother just rescued me from having to talk anymore to Tessa Weatherford."

"Was she uncivil?"

"No, perfectly civil. You'll find people can be perfectly civil and still their words bite like knives. She pressed me about Oliver's romantic life and then insinuated my friend Eleanor didn't have high enough connections to enough to attend an event like this."

Addy looked angry for my sake. "So rude!"

"Her sister is not so bad, though. So, what do you make of Grant?"

Addy considered. "He's very charming. And good-looking. But I did notice that he wasn't as focused on me as he could have been. He was looking at other girls as well. Consider his options, I think."

"Hmm. A good thing to notice."

"And he wasn't funny. At _all_."

"Darling, you're spoiled by your father and brother, two of the best comedians in London. Not many young men will be able to make you laugh like them."

"Everyone else is boring."

I grinned. "Let's try your skills out on some other young men." I shifted slightly. "Between the musicians and the tables. A group of five boys your age, or maybe just slightly older."

"Two of them are father's friend's sons, but I don't remember their names. We haven't been formally introduced yet."

"Who is your favorite, just from looking at them?"

"The…blonde-haired one on the left," she replied sheepishly.

"Yes, he's certainly the most handsome. Tall, nice jaw, good teeth. But we must remember something about the most handsome boy in a group. He always _knows_ he's the most handsome. He has the biggest ego. And the larger egos are, the more they need to be fed, like big Irish wolfhounds. Hungry egos do not make the most attentive or caring lovers. What do you see about the other boys?"

Abby chewed on her tongue, intent on the question. "One of them is nervous. He doesn't seem to know where to put his hands. Him…him and that other one—the one with the blue coat—they watch the handsome one a lot. Like they think he's important. And two of them look bored. One of the bored ones is watching the girls dancing."

"So we have an arrogant boy, two insecure boys, and two bored boys—one of whom is also randy," I summed up. She went pink at the word 'randy.' "Who's the richest one, do you think?"

Her answer was immediate. "The one with the blue coat."

"Yes. Who is the nicest one, do you think?"

She thought a minute. "Maybe the nervous one? Or the other bored one? The one with the black hair?"

"Yes, I think so, too. The nervous boy and the rich boy follow the handsome one's lead because they're insecure, and because they think that by copying him and backing him up maybe they can get some of his popularity. Insecure people usually don't have the generosity to be nice. I would usually think that the ugly nervous one might be the kindest, but I don't like the tilt of his lip. He looks too ready to sneer. Blue Coat doesn't look like he can think for himself. The randy one is distasteful, but I think the other bored boy might be the diamond in the rough. He's not the most attractive, but he's not ugly. He holds himself still and collected and his eyes notice a lot, I think.

"It's easier to do this with men—especially young men—than it is with women. Women are more careful about their body language. They use it to deceive sometimes. Men aren't socially trained to be attuned to such things, and so their behavior and looks often give a great deal of insight into their character."

Addy seemed fascinated. She was scanning the crowd. " _He_ looks nice." She pointed out a young man her brother's age. "He's cleaning a spill off for the hosts so it doesn't warp their wood finish."

"Mm—yes, I like the look of him," I agreed, nodding. "Vaguely academic."

"Those girls over there…don't look too long in case they notice and talk about me in their group…Mother's introduced me to them all."

"The group your friend Maria's in?"

"Yes. Do you see the girl with the wavy brown hair? She's not nice at all, but she pretends to be."

"Mm. There are always those girls, especially among young groups. When you get older, women even out a little and stop being cruel. Usually."

"Her name is Bethany. I really don't like her. But of course Mother thinks she's wonderful."

"Your mother understands women well, Addy. If you explain what she's really like, I think your mother will hear you. She's not going to side with some girl over her own daughter."

Addy nodded slowly. She blinked a couple times, then said, "And what about the women around your father?"

I laughed and looked. "Ah, yes. What do you make of them?"

"Well, logically, his marriage having ended long ago and with his businesses going well, I should think they're after his money." She glanced at me to see if I would be offended. I smiled and nodded.

"Of course. I see the usual suspects." I gazed at the small group of women and one other man. "But there are two new women…one friend of one of the usual suspects, it looks like, and the other might be married—she doesn't seem as interested in being appealing."

"Miss Margaret keeps touching him," Addy muttered under her breath.

I chuckled. "He can handle widowed Miss Margaret. She's been after him for years. She has horrid breath."

Addy covered her mouth to laugh and nodded vigorously, obviously having been a victim of this affliction of Miss Margaret's in the past.

My gaze lingered on one of the new women—the friend it seemed Miss Gates had brought to be her companion. She was standing back behind the group at Miss Gates' shoulder and she seemed a bit shy. Her face was pleasant and attractive, and though she was a little plump, the softness suited her.

"Who are you looking at?" Addy asked.

"Miss Gates' friend."

"She looks nice."

"She does at that."

"Shy, though."

"Yes… Do you think she looks a little rosy? Like she's been blushing?"

Addy squinted. "Maybe."

"Would you hate me if I subjected us to Miss Margery's breath and went to make her acquaintance?"

"A little, but nothing lasting." Addy smirked. I took her arm and we crossed the room to join my father.

"Chandelle!" Miss Margery exclaimed as we approached. I smiled at her, but moved around her toward my father.

"I'm surprised you're doing anything but dancing, dear," Papa said. "Not enough worthy young men?"

I gave a tinkling laugh.

"Adelaide," Miss Gates greeted. "You're looking just so lovely, dear. And a new dress I think! You must tell me where your mother got it."

"I'm sorry, I'm actually not sure," Adelaide admitted. "I'll be sure to ask her."

"I don't know your friend," I commented attentively.

"Ah, this is my cousin, Miss Jeannine Bonheur." The woman bobbed a curtsy as Miss Gates spoke. "I think you too might get on well—she's visiting from Sarcelles, just north of Paris. In fact, she'd probably rather talk with _you_ than me—my French is so poor and so is her English—"

I took the opportunity immediately and held out my arm to the woman with a winning smile. "I'd be delighted."

"Pleasure to meet you," the woman managed in cumbersome and thickly-accented English.

"I know you also have excellent French, Adelaide—will you join us?" I asked, looking back as I began to walk with Miss Bonheur. Adelaide took the escape opportunity immediately. "Of course," she answered in French with a smile as I steered both of them away from the group. I turned to the woman and began to ask her about herself in her native tongue. The woman's face eased. She replied to my questions a little guardedly at first, as I was unknown to her, but when I began to wax poetic about the Rhone Alps and the delightful small towns of the northeast of the country, she became more effusive.

"It's wonderful to find another Frenchwoman here," I said to her as we returned to the group. I looked to my father and claimed his attention. "Papa, you must ask Miss Bonheur about Sarcelles. I don't think we know anyone from that town, do we? It sounds lovely. I know you're fond of small towns, and Miss Bonheur shares your interest in the history of Alsace as well."

Papa smiled and amiably engaged Jeannine in French, leaving the rest of the small party to make other conversation. A slight flush was rising to her cheeks when Adelaide and I curtsied our leave.

"Was that all to get your father to talk to her?" Addy asked, her arm in mine.

"I went over just to investigate, and when I learned she was French, of course I pushed them into conversation. It'd be good for my father to remarry, though not to the likes of women like Miss Margery or Gates."

Oliver found us with a friend of his in tow just as another dance was beginning.

"Moreau, I demand a dance with my sister—you shan't keep her to yourself all night," he announced, "and Gresham would be honored to claim you for his partner."

"I suppose I can allow it," I teased, smiling.

The dance turned into a series of them, as my partnership was asked for by a number of young men, some Oliver's friends, some my father's friend's sons, and some I had met just earlier when my father and I first entered. Adelaide was never alone; Oliver danced a second with her, and then the Pearson's son partnered with her, then Grant again, and then the handsome blond boy we had discussed earlier in the evening. I laughed seeing her dance with him, and she caught my eye and laughed so hard she had to cover her mouth with her hands.

Finally I ended up partnered with Oliver again.

"You lost that bet to your father, did you see?" he asked, grinning warmly.

"Yes," I sighed. "I don't know how the man kept himself conscious until a quarter to nine!"

"Much practice?"

I chuckled, but then sobered a bit. "Oliver, Adelaide's getting older. You should start being frank with her. I told her about Avery."

He blanched a little. "I didn't want to frighten her."

"Better a bit frightened than ignorant."

"Well, all the attention she's getting tonight proves you to be right. I'll tell her what I know about the last two season's young men. Sort the decent from the dubious."

"I think that would help her a great deal. She's a bright girl."

Oliver made a little show of crossing himself and then raising his hand as if thanking the Lord. I smirked. We were forced out of range of conversation by the dance steps, and then we were together again.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

…

 **N** ear the end of the night, I caught a few moments of peace and isolation by slipping away to a second floor balcony overlooking the Rumont's lawns. I rested my elbows on the cool wrought iron of the railing and gazed out over the line of the property and up where the stars glinted like shards of shattered glass.

My gaze dropped to the lawns again, only the edges of it lit by the glow of the lamps inside. The main back balcony was far to the left on the other side of the manor, and the noise from the dance was muffled from this distance. No breeze stirred my hair or dress; the night was warm and very still. The perfect midsummer night.

My eyes caught a flash of white near the hedges and I smiled despondently when I saw Adam appear far away below, gazing up at me. It did not surprise me he was shadowing the Rumont estate; I had told him this morning where I was to be found tonight. But it did send a spear of sadness through me. Here I was…and there he was…and he could come no closer to my world. We were separated as if by a glass encasement.

I kissed my fingers and blew it to him on the nonexistent wind. He put his hands behind his head and stood and gazed at me from below. I could not see his expression from this distance. I rested my chin in my hand and shared the moment with him for as long as I could before I heard someone headed my direction.

"Moreau?" came Oliver's hissed voice from the hall behind me.

I sighed. I heard his rapid steps almost pass the French doors to the balcony, but then he stopped when he caught sight of me.

"Christ, are you _alone_ up here?" he demanded. I watched Adam melt away from my sight with a pang. I turned to Oliver.

"Just wanted a few moments of quiet."

His eyes were tight. "Benjamin _Avery_ and God knows how many other potential Averys here in this house tonight and you wander around the other side of the dark second floor unaccompanied? _Chandelle_."

Oliver rarely called me by my first name; he almost always referred to me by my surname as he did all his other male friends. He sounded exasperated.

"It would have given me the opportunity to practice my right cross," I quipped.

For once I did not make him smile. "That isn't funny." He pinched the bridge of his nose in between his fingers. "Between you and Adelaide I'm going to go prematurely grey." Another thought came to him. "Is everything alright? That Tessa woman again? Someone else?"

"Is it really so hard to believe I just wanted some time alone?"

"No, but it's not hard to believe that you might have been upset, either."

I smiled a little. Oliver the lawyer. "It's not the case."

"Good, because three glasses of wine is one too many for me to be dueling." He turned slightly, gesturing for me to follow. "Come on. There'll be talk if we're found like this together."

I followed him, but I stopped him a ways down the dim hall, pulling on his arm. "Oliver, wait."

He turned. The light was so dim it was almost black in the hallway, and he was close enough that I had to angle my head up to look at him. He raised his left hand to touch my elbow, and then lowered it before he touched me. It reminded me of summers innocently flirting with him when I had been a few years younger, and my heart beat a little harder.

"Don't tell me you're tired already, Moreau," he said, grinning a little. "Are you getting old, love?"

"I want a moment to talk to you."

Something akin to pain flashed in his brown eyes for a moment and he lifted a hand to gently tuck some of my hair behind my ear. "Chandelle…don't."

"Don't what?"

"Christ, Moreau," he sighed. Now his hand was at my elbow. The touch was gentle. There was trepidation in his eyes. "I thought we… I mean, I'll be honest, love—I'm so attracted to you, it's painful to say—I've always been attracted to you—but I don't know if we…would be well-matched. I—"

I grinned quite suddenly, and it made him pause so I could interrupt. "I don't want to marry you, Oliver. Stop sweating. That's not what this is about."

"Oh."

"I didn't know you were so tempted by the prospect, though."

"Have you ever looked in a damn mirror?"

I giggled, perhaps a little too gratified by that. Then I said, "We would fight _every day_ if we got married. One of us would end up stabbing the other in the neck with a butter knife, and even though the lovemaking would be extraordinary, it wouldn't be worth _that_."

Oliver had his fingers at the bridge of his nose again. "You're making me feel very confused, Chandelle, and so if you don't get to your actual intended point in the next few seconds, I might accidentally propose to you in order to obtain the 'extraordinary' aspects you were mentioning—"

"I want to talk marriage, Oliver, but not yours. Mine."

His hand darted down into a finger pointing at me with a swipe. "Aha!" he exclaimed under his breath. "I _knew_ you were being evasive in the theatre! You took a lover in Geneva!"

"Yes."

"You're going to _marry_?"

"Yes."

"How unexpectedly conventional of you."

"There is so little conventional about him as to make that statement absurdly ridiculous."

Oliver was quiet for a moment, his mouth open as if to speak, and I could almost see the gears whizzing in his mind. "Explain."

"I just didn't want it to take you by surprise. Papa and I will be going out of the country for a while and I shall return a married woman, though my husband may remain elsewhere."

His eyes tightened and his eyebrows pulled together. "What on _earth_ do you mean? I assumed when you started prattling about unconventionality that you actually loved this person, and now you say you won't be living with him."

"It's all very complicated, Oliver."

"No." His jaw was set in a look I knew well. "No no no. Nothing is ever actually complicated, just unpleasant to explain. Is this a cover? Are you pregnant?" His eyes shot to my stomach. "You're pregnant, aren't you. If you're pregnant, I'll marry you, Chandelle, butter knives or no."

"That's very gallant, but I assure you it's impossible that I'm pregnant."

"Are you in love with a woman? Such things happen. You _know_ I'll keep your secrets for you—I know you know that."

I blanched a little, then laughed. "Alright, Oliver. Think male prostitute, slave, eunuch, gypsy, leper—that sort of level. I'm in love with someone on that sort of level. I'm keeping them away from society for their own good, but I intend to marry them, all the old bats be damned. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

He covered his mouth with his hand, shaking with shocked, suppressed laughter. "Moreau, damn you. You're crazy. I love it. I want to meet the leper. Oh, please."

"You're _never_ going to meet him, Oliver, and I want you to swallow that pill _right now_. All the way down. Swallow it."

He still smiled, but the smile had a sorrowful edge. "Really? I can really never meet the man that has captured the love of Mademoiselle Moreau?"

"I don't think so, Oliver, I'm sorry. I'm rather protective of him."

"You are the strangest and most exciting woman I have ever known, darling."

"I'd keep it that way, if I were you. Too many lunatics can spoil a party, as they say—or is it the soup? Come on, we best get back."

"So many people have left already, and the rest have been drinking, so I doubt we've been missed—and I want to ask one more thing before we go." His hand at my elbow turned me back to him. "So, you never considered marrying me?" He was grinning, but there was a touch of vulnerability in his eyes.

"Mr. Bales," I replied gently, "I thought about marrying you for _years_. The first year of our acquaintance I had named all of the children we were going to have. I used to wear that coat that you left at my house for a week to bed every night. _That's_ how much I considered it."

His smile was impossibly wide.

"But," I continued, "as we grew to know each other, I began to understand the type of woman you like—the type you want to eventually marry—and I realized it would never be. You don't like your partners to be as smart as you are."

He looked a bit ashamed. "That not…"

"It is, Oliver. There isn't anything wrong with it."

"It sounds awful, said like that."

"I didn't mean it to sound awful."

"I know you didn't." He sighed. "You're right, though. I like being smarter. I like the control of it."

"I know."

He smiled at me, a small smile. He smelled like wine and cologne.

"Will you kiss me, before you're a married woman, Chandelle, love?" he asked quietly.

I gazed at him. "I have a lover, Oliver. God help me, but I seem to be the faithful sort. Only this sort of kiss." I brought his head toward me and kissed him on the temple.

"I suppose it will do," he agreed. "Let's go, love. When we walk back in, let's be laughing."

"Aren't we always?"

…

Adam must have been concealed somewhere in my townhouse, because not a few seconds after Charlotte had helped me out of my party gown and taken away the basin I washed my face and hands in, he slipped in the door and closed it behind him.

I was glad of it. I lifted my face for him to kiss me, and his arms folded around me, almost entirely bearing my weight.

"I'll tell you of the party tomorrow morning, my love," I told him. "When I'm less tired. Let's go to sleep."

He climbed into the bed with me and lay beside me, brushing my hair and the side of my face with his fingers. He kissed me gently—my nose, my cheeks, my forehead, my lips. I smiled.

"I missed you."

"I would have given anything to have been able to dance with you tonight. To court you in the light amidst music and smiles like you deserve," he murmured.

"It doesn't matter." I touched his scarred face, brushing his cheek with my thumb. "I told Oliver I would be married soon. He understands the situation well enough and I trust him to be discreet."

"Will you tell your other two friends as well?"

"In a letter sent from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, so I don't have to answer their questions."

He was nodding. "I'll get the lamp."

"Thank you."

He blew a gentle breath and the room was black.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

…

 **I** had entirely prepared Papa for the meeting, but still my heart beat nervously as we returned from dinner to the large inn we were staying in in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Evening had not fully fallen, but the glass-cased oil lamps hanging from the patio rails of the inn along the cobblestone street had already been lit. In the distance rose the magnificent landscapes of the Massif des Alpilles. The inn was welcoming, though the night was overwarm.

"He'll be waiting in our rooms, you say."

"Yes, Papa."

Earlier that day, Adam and I had worked hard to make his face as presentable as possible and dress him finely. I did not know what he had been doing the better part of the day, however. I hoped his clothes hadn't been soiled.

I had told my father about his size and scarred face, and about his temperament. How he had been shot in the arm in front of me once had been more concerned about whether _I_ was alright than himself. There was more that I concealed than I told, however.

We declined the service of tea to our rooms and went up the inn stairs to the rooms we had rented. We found Adam sitting with a book in his hand in the back corner of our sitting room.

He wore no cloak; that had been decided between us this morning. He wore only his fine clothes and a layer of makeup in order to conceal the true roughness of the scars. His hair was freshly cut by me in the latest fashion, and I was glad to see his clothes and cravat were still perfectly spotless and fastidiously tied. Applying makeup to the dark circles beneath his eyes and to hide the worst of the scarring had done a great deal to help with his appearance. His eyes were still unnerving, but the time of day for the meeting—dim, but not night—had been carefully planned by us and smoothed the worst of things.

Seeing us, Adam set his novel aside, stood, and bowed handsomely. I could see his discomfort and apprehension in the slight stiffness of his body, but he kept it from his face. I could also see Papa's shock at his size and appearance in his brief pause and stiff manner. But he bowed politely, and I walked to Adam to take his hands in mine and kiss his cheeks in greeting.

"Are you well?" he asked gently in his beautiful French.

"Yes, and you?"

He nodded. I noticed an odd assortment of burlap sacks beside his chair, but ignored it for a moment.

"Adam, this is my father, Monsieur Daniel Moreau," I introduced. "Papa, this is Monsieur Adam Bordelon." The surname 'Bordelon' had been decided upon between us weeks ago to be his surname and the surname I would take as my own. It was handsome and sounded pleasant with both our names.

They both made secondary polite bows.

"Monsieur, I want to apologize deeply for the trouble and complication inherent here," Adam began as we took seats. "I wish I could have been able to court your daughter among her friends in the expected way, but such conventionality is impossible for me, as I know you can see."

Papa was still digesting his appearance. His facial expression kept rearranging, as if it could not settle on one expression. "Yes…I see that," he said slowly.

I took one of Adam's hands in mine. He gave me a tender glance and gave my hand a gentle squeeze. He continued, looking back at my father, "I am keenly aware the great scandal it would cause her if my…strangeness…were to be publically known, and I want to swear to you that nothing is more important to me than her wellbeing and happiness. As I know you know, your daughter is fierce, kind, breathtakingly clever, and even more breathtakingly brave, and for these reasons, and many more, I love her deeply. I may never be able to stand at her side before society, or give her children, but I can care for her, comfort her, give her wit good battle" —he smiled a little— "and cherish her.

"I have also been giving a great deal of thought to the possibilities for providing for her in my own way. My pride has difficulty being merely in the position of benefactor. I have brought a few items for consideration." He stood and went to the sacks. His voice was a little rueful. "All of them are pieces of artisan work, which I know carries in itself a certain stigma, but these sorts of talents can sometimes make themselves of value to those interested in purchasing."

He pulled out a number of things at which I could only stare. He had told me nothing of such efforts. There were pieces of woodworking, charcoal and oil art on canvas, and even what looked like some sort of handwritten manuscript in his elegant ink handwriting.

"I believe the woodworking will get much better," he qualified. "I have only just begun with it. I tend to be rather good with my hands, and my progress has been rapid so far. It may continue. The canvases I am perhaps proudest of."

I could only stare. He had painted the Alps in living color with oils. The central focus was in minute detail, the outer edges blurry as if the painter could not properly recall those details. And the darkest lines seemed _cut_ into the almost-dry oil by some sort of blade. I reached out to touch one such cut line and he explained, "I used shards of glass to cut in the final details."

There were more, and my eye was immediately drawn to a portrait of myself, my head and shoulders in lines only blue and grey, the off-white of the canvas my skin. Here, too, the finer details were cut in—to fascinating effect. His rendering of my features was true, and he had even captured something in the tilt of my jaw and the position of my shoulders that somehow conveyed humor.

I looked at the others. Victor and Elizabeth in living detail standing alone in a brown and black nothingness, him grasping her frame as tears shined wetly on her cheeks. Victor looked both vulnerable and villainous. The viewer got the impression he had just done something horrible.

The garden in front of my townhouse.

A strange, alien land of outlines, smoke, and oddly familiar shapes which took me a moment to realize were rooftops in London.

"Adam…these are incredible," I murmured, rather awe-struck. "You didn't say a word!"

"I wanted to wait until as much as possible was collected together." He shifted his shoulders into a sort of self-conscious shrug. He kept glancing at my father. Papa had been looking with me at the paintings and he too was glancing often at Adam.

"You have talent," he complimented, finding his voice finally. "And a fresh technique. The new house on Albeney has space for a studio. We'll send materials in. I think these would certainly sell." He pushed his glasses further up his nose, his business sense kicking in. "Although not on the street. I'll contact higher circles and we'll feel out the market there. And perhaps let us keep these original pieces. I rather like them. In fact, would you be willing to part with that London roofscape? It's my favorite of the collection, and I would like it for our first home in Lyon. Now, but who is this man here?"

I was smiling, but it faded a bit. "Your nephew Victor, papa."

"Ah." He looked dismayed. "Did he hurt her? That is Elizabeth, no? He's grown into a dangerous-looking man." He glanced at Adam. "Although only compared to some."

"He does not always look so angry. And I do not think he would ever strike Elizabeth," I murmured.

"It's an unsettling piece. Perhaps we will not display that one. Chandelle, he got your likeness well, didn't he? And with only white and grey. You look as if you're about to say something teasing."

I laughed a little. "Yes." I looked at my lover again. "Adam, you have an excellent eye."

"Thank you. I don't know much about art."

"All the better," Papa commented. "The style is so new. Well, it is good to know you will be bringing in some money. Now, as Chandelle told me you know, the house on Albeney Boulevard is ready and the staff has been settled in."

"It's a beautiful house," Adam agreed, nodding. He had in fact been very pleased by the purchase of it and the alterations Papa and I had made. "It's good to have the space—the grounds and the trees and high greenery fencing it in."

It was larger than my narrow house downtown, but not the size of a manor, either. Our stables were small, and there were no wings, but the design of the place lent itself to the first floor being the place for guests and entertaining, and the second floor being entirely private. The staircase up was in the back of the house instead of the front. It was more at the edge of town than I liked, but I knew I would grow used to it. And the kitchen was spacious and well-equipped; Beaumont had been elated. I particularly liked the oak beams in the main living and dining areas and the open-faced stone of the main fireplace.

"It will need more help than our small household to run it, and my housekeeper has expressed some concern on that front, but Chandelle tells me you wish to be of use instead of allowing more staff."

"Yes. I'm very used to doing such things, and for purposes of discretion, it's best only Chandelle's staff who know her and are loyal to her should be in employment there."

"It's a bit of an odd arrangement, as Madame will feel strange directing you, but I suppose it will grow more normal as it goes." Papa sat back in his seat. "You are _not_ what I expected, Monsieur Bordelon. But I find myself content." He drew legal documents from the inside of his coat. "I have the papers here. It took a little finagling, but the thing will be legal with both your signatures and the signature of myself as witness. Shall we?"

I had turned to Adam with a tender smile, and I saw that his eyes had quite suddenly filled with tears. He turned aside for a moment to brush them away and I saw that Papa had seen it too. The lines in my papa's face gentled.

"I'll sign first, my love," I told him, getting up for just a moment to fetch pen and ink from the writing desk. I sat back down, and without hesitation skimmed my eyes over the marriage papers and signed my name. There was a signature of a priest on the papers and I wondered how my father got gotten it. Below my first signature, on the line for my new legal name, I signed _Chandelle Louise Bordelon._

Adam signed next, the traces of his overflow of emotion gone now. He signed neatly and said to Papa, "Thank you so incredibly much for all your help in making this possible, monsieur." There was undeniably sincere gratitude in my voice that I knew my father could hear. "I never believed myself worthy of such a thing. My life is your daughter's."

"Yes, well," muttered my father rather gruffly, "I'm not a priest, so if you want to kiss your bride, you'll do it another day. Do you have that ring for him, _ma fille_?"

"Yes." I pulled from my purse two little white satin boxes from the jewelry shop Papa and I had visited earlier that day for the necessary accompaniment to the paperwork. I opened mine. "Will you put mine on me?" I asked Adam.

His eyes were moist but he did not let tears fall again. He took up my left hand gently, plucked the little golden ring from the case, and slipped it onto my finger. I had taken the measure of his ring finger with my eyes that morning before shopping, and I produced from the second little case a simple golden band. A thumb ring intended for a large man had been the closest to the size I could find. I had hoped it would be a passable fit, and it was. He held his hand out experimentally, just for a tiny moment, then put his hand around mine again and our eyes met.

Papa cleared his throat. "This old man is tired. Let us say goodnight until tomorrow."

"Of course, monsieur." Adam stood and gave a bow.

"Leave your things with us," I told him. "We'll pack them and travel with them so you don't have to."

He nodded. He took my hands and kissed my cheek in goodbye, then took his leave.

"Well?" I turned to my father.

"Well it's done," he replied, "but tell me, dear—does the man have a giantess for a mother? His _hands_."

"Yes, he's tall," I agreed unconcernedly.

"Tall," he muttered. " _I'm_ tall. That man is a barge. And all muscle. You aren't frightened of him?"

"No, papa. Of course not."

" _I_ am. What in God's name is wrong with his eyes? Can he even see out of them?"

"Yes." I gave him a look. "I admit they're odd, but you'll grow used to it."

"Unlikely… Was he in a terrible accident? Why is he covered in scars?"

"The story involves a monstrous man, and it was no accident."

"Someone _did_ that to him?"

"Yes, papa."

"Christ." The joking air entirely deserted his tone and his expression grew grave. "I'm sorry. Chandelle…that's horrific. How old was he?"

"Very young."

"Mary and Joseph, I'm sorry, _ma fille_. Forgive me my teasing?"

"Of course. He's a good man, I promise—else I would not love him as I do."

"I believe you, dear. My married little _madame_. Come, your father is tired. Let's go to bed and then enjoy the town some more tomorrow. A day sipping wine and wandering these old streets to the ocean, mm?"

"That sounds absolutely wonderful, papa."


	21. Chapter 21

Author's Note:

Please note that the story's rating is now **M** (Mature) for explicit sexual content.

…

Chapter 21

…

 **T** he house on Albeney was the sort of home I thought I might one day live in with my husband and family, but I had never expected it to happen so soon.

I had already toured the place on other occasions, and everything else had already been sent over. As Madame Ida met me and saw me to the refurbished master suite, I looked through the house at the rooms and touched the walls gently, gazing at the way it looked with all my things from the townhouse moved into it. Papa had hired something of a decorator, and I was pleased with the results. The colors in the house were dark at times, but it was offset by the high, cream-colored ceilings latticed with oak beams and the number of full length windows on the lower floor.

The front sitting room parlor with its beige piano and the dining room were the brightest rooms; their windows were full and west-facing. The crystal in the hutches in the dining room glittered in the remnants of the evening sunlight. There were new pieces of art and sculpture in the house, as the townhouse's pieces were not enough to properly decorate a bigger home, and I was pleased by the new choices and especially happy to see Adam's works incorporated amongst them. His painting of the Alps hung in the dining room, and his portrait of me was sitting with artful casualness on the top of the fireplace mantle in the sitting room. His small painting of the garden in front of my old townhome hung in the small tiled entrance hall.

The sitting room parlor was a lovely entertaining space—airy, with comfortable yet elegant seating, musical instruments, and a card table. It contained the most expensive decoration and furnishings. I particularly liked the built-in bookshelves filled with favorite titles and the latest scientific and political publications amongst the art also decorating the shelves.

On the first floor there was a fully modern water closet next to the guest bedroom, a more private living room for family and very close friends at the back of the home, and a large study just off the living room that doubled as a library. The desk in it was already covered with my school books and papers. There was a letter desk in the study as well, but there was also one in the sunnier parlor, which I think I preferred.

The left section of the house, separated by the main areas and only accessible through the kitchen garden entrance or through the butler's pantry was reserved for the staff—the staff dining room and bedrooms. There were more bedrooms than there were people, so Ida, Charlotte, Roy, Émilie, and Beaumont all had at least two rooms to themselves.

The back gardens had grown wild while the house was unoccupied, but Madame Ida had plans for it, and would be hiring some groundswork help during the summer to tame and manicure the gardens. The grounds were not overly large, but did contain a tiny orchard with a few fruit trees, a kitchen garden, flower gardens, a moderately respectable lawn, and a small section of wood. The back patio was the most attractive part of the back of the house at present; it was outfitted with furniture and an outdoor iron woodstove, surrounded on two sides by the overgrown flower garden.

The second floor had another water closet and full washroom with basin tubs off the side of the master room, as well as a second much smaller study, and a bedroom with huge picture windows that had been converted into Adam's studio. The rest of the upstairs was hardly used; there were two more bedrooms, and then a slightly smaller bedroom likely intended as a nursery. We were keeping them furnished as more guest bedrooms.

Ida helped me unpack the few last suitcases I had brought in.

"And when will the monsieur be arriving?" she asked me, smoothing the sheets of the large four-poster master bed.

"Later this evening, in my father's carriage." I straightened. "In fact, I should like to have a few words with everyone to prepare you all for it… Shall we all sit in the dining room?"

"I'll have some water and tea brought."

…

Even though I had slept in Adam's arms so many nights since that first night in the farmhouse bed, I still found my heart pounding and my color high as he followed me up the stairs of our new home and into our bedroom.

"You're nervous," he murmured. "Don't be. I have no intention of taking a husband's rights, Chandelle, don't you know that?" His voice lowered. "I wouldn't know what I was doing even if you asked."

I gave him an appraising look. "Confused about the mechanics?" I teased.

His face screwed into an unfamiliar expression. Part apprehension, part pain, part embarrassment, part wounded pride. "Among other things."

"I'm sorry. I suppose there was no way you could have learned about these things."

"I'm not one of your dandies who has practice in carrying out skillful seductions. This can't be a conventional first night together regardless."

"You think just because we can't risk a pregnancy means we can't enjoy our first night? You have a lot to learn, my love."

He got the same odd and embarrassed look on his face. "Are you an experienced scholar on the subject?"

Sophia had given me frightfully detailed accounts and instruction on the matter at hand, in fact.

"I have friends who have educated me," I replied.

His eyes narrowed. "Male or female friends?"

I giggled. "Female, dear." I pretended to consider. "Although, now that you mention it, the male perspective might be of value as well."

"You will _not_ go asking for that instruction," he muttered as I opened our bedroom door for him.

"Now you _do_ sound like a husband."

I was smirking and the comment made him smile with rueful humor as well. I lifted my arms and he gathered me up so that I could put my arms around his neck. He closed the door behind us.

"Adam, darling," I whispered. "I am yours and you are mine. We have our whole lives to enjoy each other. To discover where the other best likes to be kissed. To touch and hold and play. You shan't give me children, but that does not mean we can't find pleasure in each other. I should like to start tonight." I moved my head from his shoulder to kiss his mouth, but I found trepidation in his eyes.

"I really don't…" He trailed off, and then began again. "I really don't know anything about this."

"I will teach you. You need only trust me, and ask questions if you have them, and tell me what feels good."

"Chandelle…"

I had felt his manhood hard and pressing against the inside of his breeches on more than one occasion when we would kiss or lie together, and even though I had not touched him there yet, I most certainly wanted to. Now that I was this man's wife, I wanted to explore all of him.

I leaned in to put my mouth on his. We kissed, and he was somewhat reserved at first—still ruminating over his discomfort. But the kiss deepened and he melted for me as he always did. I wrapped my legs tightly around his waist as he held me. I made little noises of pleasure in my mouth and he responded with a groan that had heat flashing on my skin and between my legs.

Groaning, he moved us to the bed so he wouldn't have to bear both our weights on legs that were growing weak at the knees.

"I love you," he breathed into my mouth. "God, I love you, Chandelle… _ange_ … _mon ange_ …"

I sometimes forgot myself while we kissed—I forgot to even move or think about anything other than how his mouth and tongue felt. But when I was not overwhelmed by our kiss, I was running my hands down and up his arms, his chest, his neck, across his collarbone, down his back. My fingers played behind his ears. His own hands ran over my arms, neck, and back, but he shied from my breasts and even my waist.

As we kissed, I took one of his hands gently and ran his palm across the bodice of my dress. My nipples hardened and ached under their layers of fabric at the touch, and I quivered deep and low in my belly. I pressed his hand harder against me, massaging my breast.

Our kiss broke for a moment while he looked in my eyes. I could feel his erection hard against my thigh. I wanted our clothes thrown aside; I didn't want them to separate us anymore. Too much separated us.

He rubbed his mouth roughly with his other hand while I showed him how I wanted him to massage my breasts. His face was red as a schoolboy's. I let his hand go and kissed him again, gentling the kiss in order to soothe him. I reminded myself that despite my desires, I had to go slowly.

"I'm yours. I'm yours, love," I murmured to him. "You can touch me anywhere—I _want_ you to touch me. I'm not ashamed or embarrassed. I want to share all that I am with you."

He took a slow, fortifying breath. I kissed his neck and shoulder and he cupped my jaw with his hand, then brought his fingers down tracing my jawline onto my shoulder and then gently brushed his palm across my bodice. The touch sent a jolt of sensation through me. I nodded and made an encouraging moan. He touched me in the same way I had been touching him—running his hands over my body, running his hands through my hair, and tracing my collarbone, the lines of my neck, and the skin behind my ears with his fingers. He held me a little tighter and let himself go a little more.

My heartbeats came harder and hotter beneath his hands. I kissed and kissed his face, the tops of his shoulders.

"Adam," I murmured, a little breathless, "will you help me unlace my bodice?"

His hands stilled. "Chandelle, how far…? I don't understand what to expect, and I don't want to do anything wrong. I love you so much…loosing you…"

"We both might make mistakes at times. You are very short on memory. We have our _lives_ to make mistakes and discover each other and touch and experiment and take pleasure in one another. You won't _lose_ me. I'm your wife now, you oaf, and you're not getting out of it." I smiled.

"I don't want to disappoint you."

"First nights are never the best, I have been told," I confided. "It gets better from here as we learn about one another. Now please, Adam, hold in your doubts just for now and trust me. I just want to be with you tonight, and touch and kiss you, and be your wife." I leaned forward and brushed his hair with my fingers. "I love your voice, I love how expressive your mouth is, I love the roughness of your hands. I love how hard your heart beats against me from your chest when I kiss you and I love how safe I feel in your arms at night. You are the best and most extraordinary man I have ever or will ever know. Kiss me, my love."

He pulled me close, tenderly, and, as if from glowing coals, the fire between us built again. I could feel Adam's passion at the edges of his body, in his trembles and soft growls and when his hips shifted in acute arousal. It excited me like nothing else, and I hunted for it hungrily.

His hand traveled across my inner thigh beneath my heavy skirts and I made a sharp sigh of pleasure, nodding. "Touch me," I moaned. "Please touch me…" His hand responded to my entreating, though it trembled slightly as his thumb brushed me between my legs, and I gasped with pleasure. I fisted his hair in my hand and let my head fall back in a moan. After a moment, perhaps of surprise, Adam's mouth found my neck and he was kissing my exposed skin while his thumb brushed me again.

I arched my back, moving away from his hand and then back—hard—against it. I moaned. I was on fire—aching, itching, wanting.

"Yes," I breathed. "Your hands feel so good, love. Will you help me with the bodice?"

He put up no reservations this time. His hands shook at the laces as he slowly let me out of my heavy dress. I stood with my back to him and the dress still loosely around me, then I turned and stepped out of it facing him. I pulled my petticoat over my head so that I was only in my corset and drawers.

I sat back on the bed with my back to him. "Would you?"

"So many clothes."

"Yes." I could feel the corset loosening as his fingers worried at the laces. "Adam," I whispered. "My bare skin—so many inches of it have never been touched by another's hand. My skin is parched of touch. When I have everything off, I want you to take me in your arms and I want you to run your hands over every inch of me. Kiss every inch. Talk about my body. Take it into your mouth—fingers, earlobes, nipples— _toes_ , even—I don't care."

His fingers had faltered and they seemed even warmer than they were before.

"Yes, love," he whispered. His hands steadied at my waist and he kissed my bare shoulder from behind with such a warm mouth it made me feel faint. His breath was hot on my bare skin.

I couldn't wait another moment. I stood, turned, and pulled off my corset, then wiggled out of my calf-length drawers, all the while keeping my eyes on him. When I was as naked as the day I was born, I stood before him and gazed at him.

Adam's face was flushed, but for the moment he was too overcome to look apprehensive. His expression was full of that rapturous gratitude and love that I had seen in it in the very beginning. He brought a hand to his face and rubbed his mouth. The way he looked broke my heart with adoration.

"You're so beautiful," he managed, in a voice strangled by emotion. "God above, Chandelle…"

I came toward him and he took me in his arms with tears in his eyes. He kissed me, wetting my cheeks. He kissed from my shoulder across my breasts and down between them to my stomach. I moaned and sighed and let my toes curl. Adam laid me across his lap and gave me what I asked. When he brushed his fingers or lips over my nipples, I gave little moans. When he trailed his hand over the wet softness between my legs, I whimpered. Whatever skin his hand ran over came alive with heat and sensitivity. I had never known before what a touch was truly supposed to feel like.

He murmured to me as he went, murmuring his thoughts, intermittent with groans. "You're soft as satin, darling. You're perfect. Kissing you is making me _salivate_ … Salty and so warm… I'm burning from the inside, Chandelle. I'm cracking from the inside with love for you. I can't contain it. Ah, sweet…" His eyes swam with moisture. "You are everything…you are the entire universe…"

I ached low and deep for him, but tonight was not the night for such things. Still, I needed release from this torturous pleasure or I thought I might burst into tears. I took his hand firmly beneath mine and brought it to the wetness between my legs. I pressed down on one of his fingers with mine where I wanted touch and pressure. I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

"This is how I want to be touched now," I breathed, my voice thick with pleasure. "Learn, and perhaps you can do it yourself in a week, or…or…two…" The pressure and movement of our fingers was making thought an impossibility for me. I whimpered, building my own pleasure with his hand.

He was patient and did not interrupt. I barely knew where he was, I was too absorbed in sensation. My eyes closed, I imagined making love to him behind my eyelids. Surrounding me, thrusting in and out of my warm slickness, feeding me…

I began making a repetitive little noise as pleasure concentrated itself in a layer beneath my skin. I knew it was coming before it happened and whispered, " _Oh, yes_ ," before all the sensation concentrating in me broke and released itself into the ether. My body rolled with rhythmic waves of contractions, and I rode them, gasping and pressing his palm against my entrance so he could feel them as well.

Finally, languid and satisfied, I opened my eyes to his. His hand still pressed warm and comfortingly between my legs and I lay in his arms across his lap on the bed. He looked amazed but also full of questions he was keeping back for the time being. I touched his face.

"Women's bodies are different, my love. That was my way of getting the release you feel when you…ah…" I smiled sheepishly, embarrassed to use such terminology. "Stoke your—your manhood."

I felt his erection jump slightly against my back and I smiled.

"I…I've never…" He faltered. I sat up a little.

"Never?" I sat up more fully. "Perhaps…it doesn't work quite the same with you because of…" I trailed off. "We shall see. Now, _mon cher_ , you must trust me completely. Do you trust me? Will you do as I ask?"

He paused for just a moment, before he nodded. I kissed him gently. As we kissed, my hand made seemingly lazily circles, caressing downward over his shirt to the top of his leather breeches. I skimmed over the top of them and then finally placed my palm over the bulge in them. Adam sucked in a breath and let it out with a shaking groan. I moved my hand up and down over that hardness and flicked a finger at the base of it. He slowly lowered himself so that he was lying on his back on the bed as if he could no longer support his own weight.

"Chandelle…Chandelle…" he breathed, his voice thick. I moved my hand from him and moved to murmur in his ear.

"You should have about as many clothes on as I do."

He opened his eyes and I smiled seductively—or what I hoped was seductively. Adam grimaced, but after a slight pause of uncertainty, he got up off the bed and began to strip himself of clothing as I had done. I watched, reclining on my elbows on the bed.

Instead of red, his face seemed to be growing paler as he pulled off his shirt and then worked at the laces of his breeches. He went slowly, glancing at me often. I could see the fear in his eyes.

Finally he stood entirely naked in front of me. The muscles of his body made hard shapes and lines, as if he were carved from stone. When he shifted, all of his musculature shifted smoothly, like a ballet of movement. It reminded me of the movements of shoulder muscles in great cats of prey—they flowed sinuously like water—deadly and beautiful. The thick scarring turned him from a larger-than-life marble work of Michelangelo into a statue that had been tipped over, broken into chunks, and then glued back together. The seams were ruinous to the grace and artistry of the original piece. And yet if one looked long enough, the seams would fade away slightly…and that original beauty smoldered, and broke the heart with its perfection.

He did seem indeed to have all the necessary masculine parts, though I felt a lick of fear at the size. Because of it, and because we could not take the risk of children, I knew we might never be able to join as men and women were designed for. That saddened me, but I knew this love would entail sacrifices. I always had.

I opened my arms for him, my face warm and joyful. The fear melted away from his face as he moved onto the bed and into my arms, incasing me in his own arms. We kissed deeply, broken often by his groans and whimpers. I was getting more pleasure than I had imagined rubbing my thighs and hands against the hot, sensitive skin around his erection and hearing his responses. I deeply enjoyed this teasing and this power.

I grew so wet as I massaged him with my hand, rubbing the thin, silky skin up and down as Sophia had instructed and he lay helpless with bliss beside me. I kissed his lips as I stoked him, but his mouth barely responded—he was too lost in sensation.

I spit on my hand and used that to make the strokes smoother. His response to that was a succession of groaning and whimpered sighs on a new level. His fists began to work, his fingers spaying and then contracting back, and he began to make a straining sort of sigh. His eyes flew open as he found release, and I cupped my other hand over the head of his erection to keep his spurt of release from shooting far. I suppressed a giggle at the whole affair. Sophia had prepared me for it, but still.

The look on Adam's face was absurd and adorable. He was overwhelmed by the sensation and a little bit flabbergasted.

"Well," he grunted at length, "what an odd phenomenon."

I couldn't keep in my giggles anymore then. "An 'odd phenomenon'? That's all you have to say?"

"It's frightfully undignified."

I snuggled against his body tightly, smirking. "Well, alone, yes, it is rather. Making love together the proper way is perhaps more dignified. But still rather inelegant, I would imagine."

"But the feeling…"

"Yes." I tilted my head back to gaze at him.

He stroked my face gently with his fingers. "It's…addicting."

"Yes. I'm going to find a towel."

He glanced down at himself as I got off the bed. "Thank you."

We wiped ourselves off and then I snuggled back into his embrace.

"I never knew I could _feel_ so good," he admitted quietly, exhaling deeply.

"Mm. And think—you don't have to leave in the morning. You're supposed to be here—to be with _me_. You don't have to leave or hide. We could stay in bed all day tomorrow if we'd like."

"Truly?"

"Of course."

"It wouldn't be…untoward?"

"It's expected of newlyweds."

"Chandelle?"

"Mm?"

"I am the happiest man on earth."

"Good," I giggled. "Will you bring the sheet up over us? I'm sleepy."

He pulled the bedclothes out from under us, pushed away the heavier blankets, and pulled the lighter sheet up over us.

"This is so soft," he noticed.

"The bedclothes are new."

"Are you happy with the house?"

"I might do a little rearranging this week, but yes. I love it. The garden needs work as soon as possible, though. It's embarrassing in the state it's in."

"Hm. I'll help where I can."

"Now shh. Let me sleep."

"Yes, my love. My wife…"

I smiled and drifted to sleep in his arms.

…

Adam and I took a very, _very_ late breakfast in our new dining room a little before midday the next morning. We kept looking across the table at one another with mischievous looks like a couple of mooning children.

Beaumont had prepared an incredible first meal for us, and though I was ravenous and it was delicious, I found myself barely concentrating. The buttery morning light hit the crystal on the table, lit the pieces brightly, and threw rainbows against the walls.

We finished our meal and took a short walk through the small, overgrown grounds, and I described to him what I envisioned for them one day. When we returned, we attempted to take some leisure time together in the back sitting room. I seated myself on a divan with a book and Adam stood near the fireplace, his elbow resting absently on the mantle. He was dressed in crisp, full gentlemanly attire and looked incredible to me, like some sort of mythological god. I tore my eyes away to concentrate on the page.

When I glanced up, his eyes were on me. I put my book aside and stood to join him near the fireplace, taking one of his hands in mine and rubbing his palm with my thumb.

"I can't stop thinking about what you look like naked," Adam confessed under his breath. "I can't concentrate on anything. I'm turning into a wretched degenerate."

"So am I," I replied with a smirk. "Let's go upstairs." I squeezed his hand and we meandered with deliberate casualness back to the staircase.

Near the top, I couldn't wait any longer and I pounced upwards, throwing my arms around his neck to kiss him. He pressed his back against the wall and made a groan deep in his throat as he kissed me deeply.

"Oh I beg your pardon!" came a gasp from the top of the landing. Poor Charlotte had come upon us from one of the upstairs bedrooms.

"It's quite alright," I replied as Adam set me down on the stairs gently and tilted his face away from Charlotte as was his habit. Charlotte quickly passed us to go down the stairs, a dust rag in her hands, and once she was out of sight, Adam picked me up with a soft growl and strode down the hall with me to our bedroom. Once the door was closed behind him, we picked up right where we had been interrupted.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

…

" **I** t's like living with an incredibly helpful ghost," Madame Ida confided to Monsieur Moreau when he came to call on the house on Albeney Boulevard.

Daniel knew Chandelle would be out at King's for a class, but he had expected to find the man of the house there. According to Ida, Monsieur Bordelon would slip away at all hours of the day and night and never use the carriage. But apparently he had been an incredibly helpful and well-mannered master so far—at least, in what they had seen of him. He was a professional at keeping to himself and slipping about unseen to spare the staff the sight of him.

"Chandelle told me he was terribly scarred up," Ida continued as she bustled about serving him tea and fresh cake in the main room. "To be honest, it did not entirely prepare me for my first sight of his face. I've seen a few people born with such defects, but something about his face unsettles the stomach, doesn't it? It's such a shame—he's never been anything but gentlemanly. We've grown relatively accustomed, but only slowly—the man isn't seen by us much if he can help it. But I admit I'm disposed to like him. His size is shocking, mind, but you wouldn't _believe_ the sorts of things he does for us around the house. He's better and faster at sorting, folding, and washing than my girl and Émilie combined, and no one builds a stouter fire or is as fastidious about cleaning the grates. He even dressed a fresh haunch for Beaumont one night and the man said he could not have done it better himself. And _little_ things. He organizes stacks, finds missing things, and sweeps, mops, stacks firewood… I suspect he's even been helping with the sewing as well, but do _not_ spread that about. Imagine, a master of a house—sewing!"

Daniel gestured to the seat across the coffee table from him as she spoke, and Ida sat and helped herself to tea as well. "He's an odd man, make no mistake. The ghostliness is one thing, but he also likes his privacy. Sometimes we'll find rooms locked and the keys have all gone missing so we can't go in. It happens the most with the bedroom and the new studio. We've gotten used to it now. All the keys reappear within a few hours or a day or so.

"He does quite a bit of the housework I'm mentioning at night—I reckon it's because he's got the run of the house then. I tell you, it's like being in the Beast's palace in the children's story from _Magasin des enfants._ I keep expecting to find an enchanted mirror and ring somewhere." She laughed a little. "The beauty and the beast, eh? And real love, I do believe. I've done just a _touch_ of snooping on him and Chandelle—well, I should say 'on the _madame_ ,' now, shouldn't I? They're very sweet. Charlotte caught them kissing on the stairway once and was red the entire _day_ afterwards." She laughed to herself. "They often read to each other in the evenings. The gentleman has a handsome voice, even if the rest of him is not. They dine together, and go walking, always touching and murmuring.

"I _do_ hope he hasn't any sort of temper, though." She turned her eyes on him, her mouth a sudden frown. "He's a powerful man, monsieur. If the two should have a row…"

"It's a possibility that concerns me as well," he admitted, "but Chandelle has given me every assurance of his self-control. She's seen his temper tested, apparently, and all was well."

Ida was nodding. She muttered, "Good to hear. The first man to strike that young lady will be the first man I will put in the bloody ground." She sipped her tea, then brightened. "If you'd like to look at his studio, it's unlocked at present. I would suggest seeing it—it's really quite incredible. The monsieur actually just finished a series of sketches of all of us—a sort of gesture of good will. Charlotte's sketch made her cry. She just stood and looked at it and cried, poor thing. In a good way, I mean."

Her gaze wandered absently over the far wall. "I believe the most difficult aspect of all of this is having to conceal his presence here. Everyone thinking he's spending most of his time away in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence… The house's layout makes it easy, but lying to callers rather goes against my nature. I do it, though," she said quickly. "It's an understandable situation. Romantic, really." She lowered her voice. "I trust everyone fully, though I'm keeping my eye on Émilie. I think she might be the most predisposed to spread a bit of gossip, and she was grumbling the most about the move. But his little portrait of her won her over, I think. The woman's never looked as pretty in her life as she did in that sketch, yet it still looked completely like her. She's a dolt if she doesn't fall half in love with him for it."

She sighed. "I don't know if we've entirely fooled Mr. Oliver Bales. He's come calling twice now when Chandelle hasn't been home and the monsieur has. Once on accident, I think, but not the second time, I would guess. He's sniffing around."

Daniel nodded slowly, frowning slightly. "She assures me they've ever only been friends, but I've seen the way he looks at her at times. In the first couple years of her being here, I felt certain she felt the same and that she had decided on him. But marriage was never quite broached. He only has himself to blame for it, but I wouldn't be surprised if he were sniffing about with some jealousy at the door jams." He took a sip of tea, and then admitted, "I like Oliver a great deal. He's an actual gentleman among piles of those who only have the trappings of it. I admit I had hoped to have him for a son-in-law. But the son-in-law I have is a fascinating, talented sort." He smiled a little. "I hope to like him just as well."

Ida eyed him, considering her next words. "Speaking of broaching the subject of marriage…I heard a certain unmarried woman has been staying in town much longer than planned…perhaps in the hopes you'll keep calling on her."

He smiled ruefully, but he could not hide the light in his eyes. "She's not the only one waylaying plans—I was supposed to be back in Lyon a full week ago."

"Well, this is a first, monsieur. Does Chandelle know?"

He barked a sudden laugh. "She shoved the two of us together at the Rumont's ball, the darling brat. She's gone to dinner with us twice now. She likes Jeannine. And I must admit, after Luci and then Chandelle herself, a calmer, gentler sort of woman is a blessing. I hate to sound so traditional, but I should have been doing my searching in small towns, not in Paris." He took a bite of coffee cake. "She's quite bright, just so much less bullheaded and loud than Chandelle, or than the squawking hens hounding me here."

Ida sipped her tea contentedly. "Finally both of you have romance in your lives." A sudden pleasure dimpled her cheeks. "Imagine, I we might have babies here soon! Charlotte's so old now—I miss having a little one."

"Chandelle may not have them she told me, and I'm getting old, Ida."

"Tosh, you're plenty young enough to have children still—and Jeannine even younger than you. She's a fine age for it. I suppose they'd be raised in Lyon, though, wouldn't they?" She sighed wistfully.

"That's enough talk of babies," Daniel said. "I haven't even asked for Jeannine's hand yet."

As he was speaking, footsteps could be heard from the entry hall and there was a gentle knocking on the door before Chandelle's husband opened it.

"Monsieur," he greeted in his eloquent French, bowing. "I saw your carriage outside. I didn't know you planned to call, else I would have been here to receive you."

Madame Ida had stood to curtsy and excuse herself from the room, and Daniel gave a polite nod.

"Come in, Adam," he said amiably, switched from English to his native tongue. "It's no trouble. I just wanted to call and make sure you're doing well."

"I'm a bit dirty, sir—I apologize." He attempted to brush of his breeches as he spoke. His shoes were dirty as well.

"No matter—have a seat. Have you been out walking?"

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent exercise, walking. I understand Chandelle is on town at King's at present."

"Yes, but she should return at a quarter to three."

"I won't impose on you that long."

"It would be no trouble."

"I spied some of the gardens as I pulled up—they're making extraordinary progress."

"Yes, sir. Madame Ida has a little team of gardenhands that come out every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday to work on it. I'm glad it's improving quickly—Chandelle mentioned that that was important to her."

"Do you garden, yourself?" Daniel asked.

"I admit most of my past experience has been in picking rather than planting, but I enjoy physical work. Chandelle has explained to me her vision for the place and I'd like to see it accomplished. I prefer working in the early morning, however, when it' still cool, not when the other men are out."

Daniel nodded and pushed some cake on him. Adam accepted the plate and Ida returned with glasses and a pitcher of water, which Adam drank a heathy portion of.

"Monsieur, I believe I have ready my first respectable collection of pieces you could take with you to sell, if you'd like," Adam said.

"Good, I was just thinking about asking to see your studio before I left, anyway, as Ida told me it would impress me. Let us go up now."

Adam led him to the back of the house to the staircase and up into the studio.

"Gracious," Daniel exclaimed as he stepped in the large, sunny room cluttered with canvases, tables of paints and brushes, and shelves of woodwork. "Why, this one. And this. These are excellent." Daniel moved slowly around the studio, looking at the woodwork pieces and canvases leaning on the floor against the walls and spread on the high tables. Almost every forth piece was of his daughter, he noticed. Her in the dining room with a crystal vase in the foreground, her out in the wild garden, her asleep on a divan. Even a small one of what might have been her bare from behind. Daniel grimaced, then saw all the Londonscapes Adam had painted, etched, and brushed in charcoal.

" _These_ will sell very well," he commented. "These are extraordinary. What is the perspective here?" He pointed.

"A rooftop."

"And here—from inside the window?"

"Yes."

"You can see the imperfection in the glass, even. And I see you've done another excellent roofscape like the first. I still like mine better, but this is just as good. Such a fascinating piece—you really have to think before you understand what you're seeing—I enjoy that."

"What about this, then?" He hunted in a stack and brought out a small canvas: glinting silver shapes against a linen background. Daniel cocked his head. "Are those…? Is that silverware on a tablecloth?"

"Yes. The heads of them aren't included in the perspective."

"Fascinating." Daniel looked around. Elegant female feet lost in bedclothes. A misty English sunrise. A wad of herbs tied with twine on a rough wooden table. And there were portraits of people as well—complete strangers. A group of immaculately dressed women shopping. Two men sitting on a curb smoking and talking. Gutter children playing with sticks. Wealthy children taking a luncheon outside with their parents. A couple walking out of the opera, the man's arm around her waist, fresh tears of emotion on her cheeks.

There was another of Victor as well, which Daniel recognized this time. This representation was kinder to him; he was looking directly at the viewer with very clever and bright eyes, his brown clothes fine and his hair styled with an artful carelessness. So too was another portrait of Elizabeth. She was turned toward a bright window and only her face was turned toward the viewer, as if she had just heard the viewer walk in the room, and she held a sort of question in her eyes. She was very lovely and painted with very soft lines. In another, Daniel recognized his brother-in-law Alphonse, his head and shoulders besides the head and shoulders of a very young man who could only have been his son. In the painting, the physical similarities were striking.

He laughed suddenly seeing a portrait he recognized.

"Has Ida seen this one?"

"Probably," Adam reasoned. Ida was painted bending over to pick up a tray but also looking up at the same time and smiling. She looked buxom and fresh-faced, with a curl or two out of place and hanging down onto her forehead. As was usually the case in Adam's work, the edges of the painting were blurred as if the details could not be recalled. Adam also often simply left the background out.

"You paint little frozen moments," he commented, "rendered with such care. It's lovely to have life preserved in this way."

"It's only a quick sketch, but I do have one of you, if you'd like to see it. You're welcome to keep it." Adam rummaged through a pile of sketches in a leather folder on one of the tables. "Here." He handed it to Daniel. The sketch was a simple head-and-shoulders portrait, but Adam had sketched him half-smiling crookedly, and Daniel immediately liked the piece.

"There's another larger charcoal, but it's both you and Chandelle, and she's too fond of it to part with it." Adam took up a large piece lying across a lower table shelf.

The large piece was very similar to the piece featuring Alphonse and his son—heads and shoulders and accentuated the facial similarities between parent and child—although this was only charcoal while Alphonse's was in oils. Daniel had always thought Chandelle looked far more like her mother, and it warmed his heart to see parts of himself in her.

"You seem fascinated by parent-child resemblances," Daniel observed.

"I think they're very noticeable and interesting, the way they inherit some traits and not others," Adam replied. "It all seems to be left up to chance. No one really understands how infants are formed in the womb. The idea that a woman's body can build a child inside it—it's extraordinary. But how are the features chosen?"

Daniel was nodding thoughtfully. "People say it is the will of God, but that is what is always said before science discovers the true details. Our understanding is always changing. Before _Epitome astronomiea Copernicanae,_ the truth of heliocentricity wasn't fully understood, either." He turned away from the work back toward Adam. "Victor—whom you obviously have an acquaintance with—was fascinated by similar questions last I heard from Alphonse. Chandelle said he introduced the two of you. Did you work with him?"

He answered carefully. "I know him because of his work, but we are not colleagues. Victor and I…have a complicated past, and we do not get on well." He turned away, back to the collection. "So I thought these seven or eight here could go with you, and if you think any others would sell well, you're free to take them along as well."

Daniel looked as if he would have liked to ask more questions, but he allowed the conversation to shift. "These eight would do well. And what about two of the paintings of the children?"

Adam was nodding as he added two more oils to the collection, carefully wrapping the pieces in cloth. "I didn't know if paintings of strangers would sell."

"I think they would." Daniel helped him wrap the pieces and tie them up with string to transport them. He turned to a bookcase filled with finished wooden bowls, spoons, and platters. "And this is your work also?"

"Yes. I do the shaving and finishing out in the side yard—all the dust and shaving would be too messy in here. I think the pieces are still too rough for selling, but soon I should think the quality will be acceptable."

Daniel agreed that the quality needed to be higher if he were to sell them under Adam's name. But the pieces showed promise. "The bowls where you have etched flowers and birds are the best pieces."

"Yes—I'll continue to improve them. Perhaps another few months and I'll have some bowls and platters ready."

"I'm impressed. They're quite lovely. You're using wax to finish them?"

"A few coats of Danish oil for soaking in and giving a richer color, then a wax coating." Adam was still wrapping and tying up the canvases with quick fingers.

Daniel nodded. "Excellent." He grew thoughtful as his eyes returned to the portraits of his brother-in-law's family. "Victor's wedding to Elizabeth was this week," he commented. "We both had received an invitation months before her visit, but Chandelle said in light of recent events, she did not think she would be welcome. It's a shame. It's been a while since I've visited their family. Do you have any idea how long this enmity might go on?"

"Years," Adam replied quietly, unable to meet his father-in-law's eyes.

"Mm." Daniel's voice was disappointed. "She still won't tell me what happened in detail, and I assume you will not as well."

"I would prefer not to discuss it."

Daniel helped Adam finished tying up the canvases, watching him out of the corner of his eye. He paused, fingers frozen, as if something were occurring to him. He stood slowly. His eyes traced over the scars bared on Adam's arms and his expression began to drop, his eyes widening with disbelief.

"Adam…your scars…did _Victor_ …?"

"I beg your pardon, monsieur," Adam said in a low voice. "I do not feel comfortable discussing it."

" _Good God_ —were there _experiments_ done to you—?"

"Monsieur." Adam's voice had a touch of steel in it now.

Daniel fell silent.

"I apologize if I upset you," he said finally. "I don't mean to be…insensitive. I'm trying to understand."

"I know." Adam's voice was low. He picked up his pile of the canvases. "Let us take these down for Roy to put into your carriage."

"Yes…" Daniel Moreau followed his hulking back out of the studio.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

…

 **E** leanor gazed out at the side gardens through the music room windows as Charlotte served us tea.

"This came together so fast!" she marveled. "How many gardenhands do you have working on it?"

I waved my hand. "Some number. Ida's in charge of them." The gardens looked as good as they did so quickly because my husband worked on them at night, but that was not something I could explain to her.

"Well, they do better work than most." She turned to sit herself on the sofa beside me but paused to stare at an oil painting hanging on the wall. "And this is new." She walked over to inspect it. It was a gorgeous portrait of me sitting on a white bench in slanting evening sunlight, holding onto my hat smilingly in the breeze. Eleanor's eyes were sharp and missed very little—she glanced over to where another smaller one of Adam's paintings hung amidst the other art I had collected for the room.

"You like this artist—I've seen his work in other rooms and halls as well," she observed. "When did you sit for a painting? I thought you didn't like such things and suddenly there's this _and_ the little one on the front sitting room mantle. Growing vain in your married old age?" she teased. "Well, his eye is excellent—your face is perfectly rendered. But what is going on with the landscape behind? Did he forget how to paint by the time he got to it? And why are there those _grooves_? Such an odd style. You _would_ like such experimental new-age pieces."

"Yes, they're odd, but lovely as well. It's my husband's work."

Eleanor spun toward me. "You're joking!" She spun back to move closer to the portrait and squint at the signature in the bottom right. "'A. Bordelon.' Good lord." She took a full step back to look at the piece again, this time with more of an eagle eye. Eleanor had an art history background, and she switched into an academic mode and started muttering to herself about what artists his style reminded her of.

"But the detail in the foreground," she ended, "and his capturing of light! Chandelle, your husband has _actual_ talent. You said he was handling some sort of business in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence—he should be given a proper studio! Bring him here."

"To the world-renowned art center of London?" I asked sarcastically. London's taste in art was about as refined as their taste in food. They also were not as appreciative of innovation as more artisanal cities. "No. His pieces are carefully sold in Paris, Florence, and Milan for a few thousand francs each. If you'd like one, I'll ask him to paint you something for your birthday."

Eleanor digested this, and then laughed. "Yes, I think I would."

…

"It's strange to be married."

Adam chuckled and turned over to prop himself on one elbow in bed to look at me. "And how so?"

"I feel a bit invisible."

"You mean men don't prance around you as much."

I swatted him lightly. "It's not just the men. I'm not competition anymore. Or a potentially interesting source of gossip—except for whether or not I'm pregnant. If I laugh too much at parties now, it's seen as me embarrassing myself, not as me being playful. I have to say, I don't love it."

"Well, we'll call it off." There was a teasing smile at the corner of his mouth.

"Oh, is that what we'll do?" I pushed roughly on his chest with mock scorn and straddled him, swatting. "Is it, monsieur?"

He was laughing and he tugged me down atop him to kiss me hard. I squirmed at first in pretend indignation, but soon the kiss turned me to pliant pudding. I melted down around him and felt myself stir with want. I sighed wistfully. I was going to the theatre with Adelaide and Oliver tonight, and their carriage would arrive within the hour. We didn't have time for the satisfying of cravings.

Adam pushed my hair back from my face with a large and very gentle hand. He kissed the side of my mouth and then my nose.

"I know," he murmured. "But we'll have later tonight. I think perhaps we'll be obliged to sleep in late tomorrow." He grinned roguishly. Heat fluttered inside me at what that grin promised. Adam had been growing quite adept at giving pleasure since our first night together. The time he spent and the patience and passion with which he touched me…

I gave a little whimpering moan and he sighed too. "Ah, love, don't whimper like that," he murmured. "I haven't learned how to say no to that sound." He smiled a little, kissing me hard again. We lost ourselves in it.

I had had plenty of time to ready myself, but that time was fast disappearing. I put my hands on his chest.

"Darling…"

"Mm." He rolled off the bed with me in his arms and set me gently beside one of my trunks of clothes. "There. Like pulling a tooth." He returned to the bed and watched me from it with smoldering eyes. There was a screen for changing in our bedchamber, but I did not step behind it as I began to take off my day dress. Adam steepled his fingers under his chin, pressing his mouth to them as he watched me.

Somehow I found myself on the bed again with his hands caressing the skin I had just exposed.

A knock came at the door and I jumped.

"Madame?" came Émilie's voice. "Mr. and Miss Bales will be here soon."

I pushed off of the bed and went behind the screen as Adam shifted his position on the bed to hide his erection. I called to her, "Yes—please come in. I'm just getting dressed."

"Yes, madame." She opened the door and walked in, unsurprised to see Adam reclining against the headboard. He was fully dressed, and as Émilie brought my intended dress to me, he reached for the book lying on the side table and opened it to the page he had been on.

As Émilie was helping me fix my hair, Charlotte knocked gently and let herself into the room.

"Madame, Monsieur, Mr. and Miss Bales are here."

I grimaced into the mirror of my vanity. "Charlotte, please serve them tea and some of that toffee your mother made yesterday, and tell them I apologize for keeping them waiting, and that I'll be down shortly." Charlotte curtsied and left. It was unlike me to keep guests waiting.

Finally when my hair and makeup were done and Émilie had laced me into my dress, I kissed Adam goodbye for the evening.

"Covet Garden?" he queried. I nodded.

"The show will run late—a little past midnight. I'm sorry about that."

He frowned a little. He worried about me whenever I was out as late as that.

"Will you find a way to sneak in and watch the performance this time?" I asked him.

"Not this time, my love. Covet is different."

I nodded. I brought his lips to mine for one last goodbye kiss and then I left the room.

I was surprised to find Oliver and Adelaide in the back sitting room instead of the front one where guests usually would have been brought.

"Is the front too pretty for you?" I teased them when I walked in. Adelaide was sipping at a teacup and broke into a happy grin when she saw me. Oliver turned from inspecting a painting to gaze at me. There was good humor in his face, but also questions.

"I should like to think us as close as family," he replied easily, "and the back of your house is more interesting, anyway."

"Your poor taste shows, Oliver," I replied, smirking, as I kissed his cheeks and then went to clasp Addy's hands. "The music room has a Mazzoni terracotta on one of the tables."

"But does it have as many of these?" Oliver had turned and was eyeing again one of Adam's pieces—a roofscape. He walked casually back over to it. "'A. Bordelon,' Chandelle. How has it never come up that your new husband is such an artist?"

I had intentionally not told Oliver anything about Adam, as I knew any piece of information would only enflame his curiosity.

Adelaide made a noise of surprise and came over to look as I waved my hand airily. "It's a hobby of his," I replied, unconcernedly. "How is the toffee? Ida made it yesterday, but I haven't tried any. Have you had some?"

Addy got distracted by my change of the subject, complimenting the toffee and offering me some from the tray on the low table, but Oliver was too clever for the little trick. He kept his hands in his trouser pockets and did not take his eyes from me as Addy fed me a sweet. His eyes moved around the room and he approached a framed charcoal portrait of me also signed by Adam.

"And this one, too," he mused. "Charcoals, oils—what can't he do?" He gazed at me. "Be present, it seems."

"Oliver," Addy admonished, a trifle shocked. She glanced at me to evaluate my response. My face was neutral.

"Your brother doesn't like when things aren't the way he wants them," I said gently, addressing Addy, though my eyes remained on him. I kept my expression vaguely bored.

"Rather, when there are secrets in the air." He gestured with a nod to the roofscape. "How could your monsieur have painted the rooftops of London if he has never been here?"

"Of course he's been to London—hasn't everyone?"

"Perhaps. But not everyone climbs Saint Paul's." He pointed to the painting, his finger almost touching it, tracing a lines of roofs. "This is Upper Thames Street and the view is across all the way to the Tower. Nothing is high enough for that vantage point but the cathedral."

"Then he must have taken the stairs to the highest windows. Perhaps he knows a cleric."

Oliver was gazing at the canvas. "I've been up in Saint Paul's. There's no view like this from the windows."

"Then he _imagined_ it, Oliver. I don't know—I'm not an artist. Now, are we going to be late to the show? And are you going to continue interrogating me the whole way?"

"No." He offered his arm and smiled. "I promise not to, madame. Let's take the toffee and eat it in the carriage ride."

Addy collected the little tin and we made for the door. But Oliver's questioning had made Addy curious, too, and the heretofore off-limits subject had suddenly become fair game.

"Chandelle," she asked as we climbed into Oliver's father's carriage, "if Monsieur Bordelon is such a good artist, why is he still a businessman in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence?"

"Only very famous artists can make a living off their art—you know that."

"Why is money an issue? My father says your father's businesses are doing very well."

"What man wishes to rely on his wife?"

Addy's mouth turned this way and that. "I didn't think it was so odd, but now after I saw those paintings of you…it seems like Monsieur Bordelon is…very fond of you." She pinked in color slightly. "Isn't it hard that he lives far away? Don't you miss him?"

"I'm very fond of him as well, but I have always been a rather independent woman," I replied easily.

That seemed to satisfy Addy. Oliver had the good grace not to add questions of his own, though I could almost see them brewing behind his eyes. He had been respectful of my privacy since I had returned back to London married, but he did not like being lied to, and it seemed he could tell my household and I were being dishonest with him. I also had the nagging suspicion that perhaps he knew in what way.

Addy entertained us on the carriage ride spreading her mother's gossiping, and we ate the sweets and laughed listening to her. In the theatre, we sat on either side of Oliver, and he explained for us the musicians of note. He personally knew a couple of them.

I was ashamed of it a little, but as it grew late, my head began to nod during the performance. Addy too, even more obviously than me. She curled up against Oliver and slept through the entire last movement. As the performance drew to a close, I held my breath for as long as I could in order to wake myself up again. It worked well, and Oliver smiled when I joined him in the applause, all traces of my previous sleepiness gone. Addy jolted awake with a fright.

The sky was overcast and the night was deep and dark as the crowd left the theatre. Lamps lit Covet Garden outside, but beyond only very occasional streetlamps or oil lamps hanging outside shops or homes lit the world.

William was waiting dutifully for us at the curb surrounded by two dozen or more other carriages; he had come back early in order to secure a close spot. We took a smart pace away from the city to Albeney Place, discussing the performance and teasing Addy for falling asleep.

"Woe to the suitor who tries to win you with music, love," I laughed. My laugh stopped abruptly when a shot rang out behind us in the night and a woman's scream sounded.

"Robbers," Oliver hissed, suddenly rigid, as Will knocked twice on the carriage from outside in warning. As Oliver shoved the curtain from the carriage window and stuck his head out to look behind us, he said quickly, "Addy, get father's pistol out and give it to me." He addressed Will with a slightly more raised voice, "Lay your whip to the horses, Will."

" _Yes, sir_."

Addy scrambled to lift the lid off a small compartment of the carriage nearest her seat. The carriage lurched to more speed beneath us. She drew a small revolver from it with a pale face, and I passed the cold metal into Oliver's outstretched hand.

There were the sounds of men shouting behind us, drawing closer. Oliver and I shared a look of alarm. We had both assumed the shouts behind us had been those of a victim carriage that would detain the robbers. But it seemed they had either given up that target or their pursuit of them was drawing them closer to us.

"Can we get off the main roads, Will?" Oliver demanded.

"Not on such a dark night, sir." Will's voice was strained and breathless. I could feel how hard he was pushing the horses. "We need the light."

"Very well—head back toward Camden where there will be more—"

A gunshot very near at hand sounded, the horses and Addy both screamed, and the carriage, guided now only by terrified horses it seemed, pitched over the side of something and began to fall.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

…

 **O** liver attempted to anchor both women, but as the roof became the floor and shuddering and banging shook them violently, both were lost from his arms. The carriage met the ground with a crash that dizzied him, and he heard the horrifying screaming of horses in terrible pain. Oliver too cried out—pain blazed across his right wrist where he had broken his fall, and it made him dizzy again.

A scream tore him back. His sister's scream.

" _Addy_!" he cried. He found himself gazing out of the upside-down and ajar carriage door and began to struggle toward it. Another gunshot sounded, and there were men's screams from somewhere behind and above. He could dimly see that his sister was outside on the dim street, and his scream mixed with hers when he saw one of his father's horses, mad with pain and fear, rearing near her. She turned and screamed up at the animal.

" _ADDY_!" His hands clawed, ignoring pain, as he tried to get his legs under him. He stared, mouth agape in a shout of horror, as its hooves fell toward her small body. Suddenly, a huge cloaked figure caught the rearing animal in powerful hands before those deadly hooves could land. The stranger wrenched the horse back, beating it with fists to drive it off. The horse screamed and reared again, but the man caught its forelegs in his own hands and shoved it back. The animal stumbled and turned, kicking and shrieking, and when the man unhooked it from its ties to the carriage, it finally danced away.

Oliver could not seem to find his voice to cry out as the cloaked man scooped his sister off the ground and placed her hurriedly aside.

" _Move, boy_!" he snarled in French as he ripped off the carriage door and bodily shoved Oliver out of his way to cram inside. " _Chandelle_!"

Pain and dread like an icy knife pierced Oliver's heart when he heard the shouted name. "Chandelle," he repeated weakly, turning to gaze into the black of the carriage, searching for her. All he could see was the cloaked man. He registered dimly that the man had been bloodstained. _Whose blood?_ He had barely gotten a look at his face in the darkness as he had moved past into the carriage, but he had seen strange, glinting eyes. He couldn't think about it now. _Chandelle…_

"Oliver!" Addy shouted from outside. He held a hand out for her as he watched the cloaked man's back. He knew with some sort of instinct that if he heard this man shout in agony, he would be able to do nothing but collapse into weeping. His sister clambered to the carriage doorframe where he had been shoved and her hands clung to him. Her words were almost unintelligible through her sobbing. "H-hurt? Ol-Oliver, are-y-ou hurt?"

"Only my wrist," he replied mechanically, still staring at the black cloak shifting over where Chandelle must be. He was glad of the composure he had been able to dredge up from somewhere, though his throat was too tight and it was somewhat of a struggle to speak. "Are _you_ hurt?"

"I—th-there's blood—but—but I can move f-fine. I th-think I fell out—out of the carriage."

He forced himself to look at her bleeding. There was a lot of it. It looked to be only surface scraping, thank Christ. But if that man had not saved her from that horse, he knew his sweet sister's life would have ended with a caved-in skull. Something about that understanding caused a sob to burst from his lips, and Addy clutched him tighter.

She screamed as the cloaked man rose, arms raised, and metal fastenings shrieked as they gave way. The entire bottom of the carriage—now the ceiling above them—was wrenched off by the stranger and folded, groaning, to the side to let dim light into the space.

Oliver saw that the light was coming from a lamp above them that swung over a bridge. They had fallen from the edge or perhaps the beginning of the bridge down onto the street that ran below it.

The man turned slightly, his face turned away from them, and Oliver could then see Chandelle's limp body on the other side of the carriage. It was as if an iron-fisted hand were squeezing his chest so that everything inside it was being crushed. _Chandelle. Chandelle. No._

"Is she—?" he asked in a half-sob.

"She already has a bruise forming on her forehead," the man replied in smooth, eloquent French. Oliver's French was fluent, but he had to blink a moment before he fully understood. By then the man had added, "I checked her for other broken bones or bleeding, and found nothing, but I cannot wake her. She needs to be seen to, and I can move faster than you."

"Are you…?"

"I'm her husband."

Oliver flinched as the man ripped a stretch of cloth from Oliver's own shirt. The man then slapped two wire rods from the carriage onto his right wrist. Oliver yelped in pain as he began to tie the rods to his wrist faster than he would have believed. "Don't move this arm," the man instructed firmly. "Call for help—there are no more of the robbers around—and try to keep your sister's scrapes clean. They're bleeding quite a bit, but they're shallow, and they'll stop eventually without too much harm done. I have to go."

Oliver was too overwhelmed to remember manners, but not so Adelaide.

"Thank you, monsieur—" she said in a rush, "Th-thank you for saving my life." She was shaking and her voice was tight, but clear.

Monsieur Bordelon was gathering Chandelle's limp body into his arms. "Keep close to your brother, little duck," he grunted as he stepped out of the carriage, "and keep away from the horses." Then he was gone.

"Oliver?" Addy's voice was higher. "Can—can you walk?"

"Yes—let's find some help." His head was spinning, but at least the crushing despair in his chest had been relieved. _Only a blow to the head. She'll likely be alright. She'll be alright._

Addy helped him out of the ruined carriage and they stared at the scene around them. One of the horses had broken at least two of its legs in the fall and was lying on the ground making heartbreaking noises. It was still lashed to the carriage, but the leather had scraped gouges into its flesh in the mayhem of the fall down the sharp hill. The other had retreated a distance and was favoring one of its front legs.

Oliver fetched the fallen pistol from inside the carriage.

"Turn away, Addy," he said softly, before he put his father's broken horse out of its pain with a swift gunshot.

When they spotted the first of the dead robbers toward the hill up to the other bridge, his sister made a shocked groan. The man's head had been wrenched around almost entirely backwards. When they clambered up the stony hill they found the robber's horses wandering listless and their riders destroyed—one had been shot in the chest, and one had had his arm ripped off and been left to promptly bleed to death.

Addy gagged twice, but to her credit, she did not retch. He wrapped her in his arms to shield her from the sight of William shot through the side and lying where he had fallen from the carriage in the tall grass. He was still gulping air, his eyes glazed. Oliver could see at a glance there was nothing that could have been done for him. Bile rose in his throat, but he forced it back.

"Who…who did all this?" Addy asked him. "Did…Monsieur Bordelon…kill these men?"

Oliver cleared his throat, but he couldn't find his voice right away, and he cleared it again before he spoke. "As far as I can tell, the men shot Will and Bordelon killed them before they could reach our carriage."

"Will?" Addy's head shot around. "They shot Will?! Where is he?!"

His throat was so tight. "He's dead, Addy." He felt her sag with grief. Death had never touched her life so closely; their grandparents had already passed by the time she was old enough to know the world.

"No…" she moaned.

"Addy…" He struggled with the words. "I need you to stay here and not move for a minute. Keep your back turned, even when you hear a shot. Will you do that for me?"

"Oliver…"

"I'll be back over in a moment."

"Oliver…" Fresh tears were welling in her eyes, but he had to put poor William out of his pain. He left her in the road and walked to Will lying in the tall grass. Almost half the side of the man's chest was missing from a musket shot. Gore dangled down into the grass and dirt. His gulping was slow, his glazed eyes barely registering anything.

With his hand shaking this much, Oliver knew there was danger of him missing a fatal shot if he went through the temple, so with the nose of the pistol, he eased Will's mouth open and shot the poor soul up through the roof of his mouth.

Oliver gagged thickly, and then swallowed the bile that had risen. He was glad to know there was some measure of iron in his backbone. Tears were streaming down his cheeks when he returned to comfort his sister.

They struggled up the road to the first cluster of lights and houses they saw and the owners of them sent for help.

"Oliver," Addy whispered as they sat on benches in someone's small entryway, waiting for news to reach their parents and another carriage and a doctor to arrive, "how did the monsieur know? How was he close enough to us to help us? Was he following us?"

"I don't know," he replied in a low voice. "But I mean to find out." The question had been plaguing him as well. He tried to think back on what he remembered of the man, but it had been so dark on that street and in the turned carriage. All he remembered was the man's immense size and strength and strange, yellow eyes… He shuddered. Chandelle had told him her husband was someone abnormal and unfit for polite society. All this time he had been imagining a brilliant cripple or a dark-skinned Muslim. He had not expected…a beast.

" _La belle et la bête_ ," he murmured.

Addy gazed at him, then away, lost in thought.

When the doctor had seen to them both and given him a proper cast and had cleaned and bandaged Addy's scrapes, Oliver did not direct the carriage their parents had sent for them to their home. Instead, they headed toward Albeney Place.

"What if he brought her straight to the doctor?" Addy asked.

Oliver shook his head. "They're keeping him a secret. He'd have the doctor fetched to Albeney instead." He turned to her. "I'll have you taken home once we get there."

Addy got a tight expression on her young, pale face. "No. I want to stay with Chandelle, too. I'm not going home."

Oliver sighed. His mother was going to throw a fit at him tomorrow. As if she could read his mind, she said, "I'll take the blame from Mother."

This faintly amused him. She might try, but there was no way their mother would be distracted for punishing him for allowing her daughter to be put in such danger and then not brought immediately home.

Chandelle's housekeeper Ida was in hysterics when they arrived, and even their butler and valet Roy had tear streaks on his cheeks. Even as overcome as she was, Ida still detained them to the entryway.

"I don't think you should be here right now, Mr. Bales." She managed to sound firm and businesslike despite the tears in her voice.

"Is Chandelle upstairs?" he demanded.

She hesitated, and that was all the answer he required. "Then I will see her." He deftly moved around the woman and strode toward the back of the house and the stairs to the second floor.

"But Mr. Bales!" Ida shouted after him, pursuing him. "Mr. Bales, you can't—"

Roy was swifter than the housekeeper and caught him on the upper landing. Roy shoved him against the wall with uncharacteristic fierceness.

"This isn't your house, Mr. Bales," he growled, "and you aren't allowed up here without invitation."

Addy was racing up the stairs and caught up to them, gasping at the sight of Chandelle's young butler pinning her brother to the wall with his fists full of Oliver's velvet coat.

"They know of me already, Roy," came Monsieur Bordelon's deep voice from behind the nearest door. "It can't be helped."

Roy lowered his arms slowly and Oliver strode to the door and wrenched it open. He and Adelaide stood and stared at the man who sat on a sofa at Chandelle's bedside in the light of oil lamps.

Addy sucked in her breath as if to scream, but she held it in and let the air out with a soft, shaky cry. Oliver found himself pushing her back out of the doorframe and behind him in protection.

" _What are you_?!" he demanded through his teeth.

"Beelzebub," Bordelon answered in a bored tone, his gaze never having left Chandelle's face. "Cower before me, mortals, and fear ye souls, and so on and so on."

The sarcasm dripping from the monster's tone slapped a bit of sense back into Oliver. He dragged his gaze from the hideousness of the huge man to the woman lying in the bed. Chandelle had a poultice for pain and swelling on her forehead and right temple, as well as her left wrist and left knee.

A small serving girl was standing beside Bordelon with a copper pan of ice water and a towel soaking in it. She seemed utterly unconcerned about standing next to the monster. It was all so unnerving and disproportionate. Oliver stood in the doorframe, paralyzed by uncertainty.

"Charlotte dear, run and get Mr. and Miss Bales a glass or two of wine," he instructed the serving girl gently. "They've had a difficult night, and they've just had their first good look at me on top of it, which is trying under even the best of circumstances."

"Yes, monsieur." The girl handed him the bowl, and Oliver and Addy moved aside so she could leave the room.

"For God's sake!" came Ida's impatient voice from behind them. "Has she woken yet, monsieur?"

"Not yet, Ida. I keep trying." There was a strain of emotion in his voice that deepened his eloquent French into something moving and painful. The night breeze stirred the curtains on the open window at the other end of the room.

Oliver forced himself to look hard at the man. His unnatural, scarred features were pale, and there was a sheen of sweat shining on his face. He held his huge body stiff with anxiety, as if in acute pain, and his ghastly yellow eyes barely left Chandelle's face for more than a moment. There was something in his face and posture that went beyond worry and concern.

This man was in agony over his wife.

"Where is she hurt?" Addy asked from behind Oliver. She attempted to squeeze past him but he did not allow it. " _Christ's sake_ , Oliver—the man saved my _life_!" She hit him in the arm has she had not since they had been children, and it surprised him such that she was able to dart through the doorway to Chandelle's bedside.

"She has bruising here, here, and here," Bordelon answered her softly, pointing with a finger to where the poultices were spread, "and she hit her head rather badly…I don't know how badly."

Oliver joined her at the side of the bed. "Where is the doctor?"

"I will suffice."

"She needs an actual _doctor_!" he found himself shouting at the top of his lungs. "Don't you _think_ this is _serious_ enough that she—"

"Mr. Bales," Bordelon cut across him. "I've read every medical publication of note of the last four years. I doubt even your family physician could say the same. My expertise will suffice."

Oliver struggled with himself. Bordelon barely paid him any attention. His eyes were riveted on the woman beside him in the bed, his concern so desperate it was painful to witness. Oliver softened slightly, seeing it. His eyes too dropped to Chandelle's face, and his expression tightened and turned down with anxiety. He wanted to touch her face, her hand, her hair. _Please wake, love. Please._ He stood close to her, opposite of her husband, and stopped himself from reaching out to her.

 _A show_ I _suggested,_ he thought viciously to himself. _Our carriage. My instructions. My fault._

The maid—Charlotte—returned with a tray of wine and Oliver accepted a glass, pulling an armchair up to the bedside as Bordelon had done, and dropping heavily into it. Addy seated herself against the arm of his chair and also sipped at a glass.

Bordelon wrung out the towel in the ice water, then stood to lean over Chandelle and pat her face with it. "Chandelle," he murmured. He got no response and sat down again, his face creased with worry.

"She'll need water," Oliver commented, gazing with pain at her unresponsive face. "It'll have to be trickled into her mouth."

Bordelon nodded. "She needs to wake soon. That is most important. The longer it goes…" His eyes looked wild with dread. Oliver had to look away. He drained his glass.

"You've been here the entire time, haven't you?" he asked, knowing the answer.

Bordelon conceded it with a nod, not taking his eyes from Chandelle.

"Here? In the house?" Addy demanded with a frown. She looked to Oliver. "Chandelle lied?"

He gestured to Monsieur Bordelon. "Can you see him walking around the streets of London and attending parties with her? Of course she lied."

"Even to us?" Addy looked affronted. Oliver said nothing. He finished his sister's glass of wine and felt a bit more fortified for it.

"You met her in Geneva?" he asked the man.

"I know her cousin."

"You _know_ her cousin, or you haunt the _graveyard_ _near_ her cousin?"

Addy inhaled with a gasp and Monsieur Bordelon locked angry yellow eyes on him.

"Frightened of a few scars, Bales?" he contended levelly.

Oliver ignored that pass. "Did she find you in the woods? Are you some sort of king of the goblins?"

"Oliver!" Addy exclaimed, shocked.

"If I were," the man replied with a slightly chilling note in his measured voice, "would it be wise to mock me?"

The room had gone silent during their back-and-forth, but now Ida spoke up sharply. "Mr. Bales, you must have _lost your mind_ to come into Madame Bordelon's home and insult her husband." She was rolling up her sleeves as if about to attempt to wrestle him from the room herself.

"Thank you, Ida," Bordelon said gently. "But Mr. Bales will not be ejected for overabundance of wit, despite his ungentlemanly incivility. They care about Chandelle and have a right to be here if they wish it."

Ida sniffed, displeased. "Mr. Bales, one more ungentlemanly comment and I shall have words with your mother."

"Am I the only one here who can see his _eyes_?" Oliver demanded, standing in a rush. He directed his fierce words at Bordelon. "Are you even _human_?!"

Monsieur Bordelon stood like a thunderstorm and Oliver stiffened, expecting to be attacked, but instead the man walked calmly to the door and began to close it. "If you would please leave Monsieur Bales and I alone,'' he told the group huddled in the doorframe.

"Now—now—" Ida began nervously.

"He won't be harmed, Ida." The man kissed her cheek fondly and she looked reassured enough to allow him to close the door on them. When the room was empty but for him, Oliver, Addy, and Chandelle on the bed, Bordelon returned to his chair and resumed his position gazing at his wife. He said nothing.

Oliver felt an odd sense of anticlimax. "Well?" he demanded.

"Oliver, stop," interjected Addy.

"Are you?" he demanded, ignoring her.

"Bales," Bordelon replied in a weary tone, "While I cannot have the household watch you insult me with impunity, I have neither the attention nor the energy to give any thought to whatever insults take your fancy. You flatter yourself, boy, if you think you are the first, last, bravest, or cleverest man to curse me. I have been cursed at all my life. Sit yourself down."

There was moment of quiet, and then, astonishingly, Addy snapped, "Oh, sit _down_ , Oliver." She straightened her back. "Monsieur Bordelon wants to focus on Chandelle, not you. In case you've forgotten, she's _hurt_." She walked to Bordelon's side. "What will we do if she doesn't wake, monsieur?"

"Everything we can, Adelaide. Change the sheets, give her water, wipe her down…"

"How do you know my name?"

"Chandelle often speaks of you—fondly."

This warmed her face a little. "She never returned you the favor."

Bordelon glanced at her to give her a small, weary smile. "I know you understand why."

Addy crossed her arms. "I don't, though. You're perfectly civil, and Oliver and I can keep secrets. She should know that."

"Sometimes one takes nothing for granted when one is trying to protect someone," he replied gently.

"Will you become angry, monsieur, if I ask you how you became so covered in scars? Was there a terrible accident?"

Oliver watched Bordelon's face, poised to snatch Addy out of harm's way should it darken. The man's expression did not change, but he paused before replying.

"A man gave them to me."

She stared at him, her wide brown eyes growing wider in horror. "Is he—is he in _jail_?" she demanded.

"Oh no, little one," he replied quietly, his eyes still on Chandelle's face. "That would have been far too kind. Instead I have punished him until he swam in and out of sanity. Do not worry yourself over me."

Adelaide took a small step back from him, reevaluating. She glanced at Chandelle, then back at him, and then at Oliver.

"And so here lies a tricky moral question," Bordelon continued gently. "Is vengeance justifiable? Do some acts naturally beget other acts? A bitten dog bites back—this is the way of nature. Yet man assigns morality; he debates concepts of nobility and justice. But without the protection of law, one knows nothing but the laws of nature, is it not so?"

Adelaide looked unsure. She looked to Oliver, who was gazing at Chandelle's husband with sharp, intuitive eyes.

"I suppose it would be so," Oliver agreed in a low voice. Monsieur Bordelon's eyes met his for a moment, then both gazes dropped back to Chandelle.

"Those days are behind me, little duck," Bordenlon said quietly to Adelaide. "No need to be frightened."

"But you killed those men. Those robbers."

"Who would have killed _you_. No, indeed, who would have raped you and then killed you. Your brother is the lawyer here—you can ask him who is in the wrong. I care nothing for such debate."

Adelaide did not look as shocked by that reply as Oliver had expected her to be.

Bordelon wrung out the towel in the ice water again and patted Chandelle's pale cheeks and forehead with it. He brushed her hair away from her forehead and his fingers trailed gently down her jawline. Adelaide and Oliver both watched him, seeing the tenderness with which he touched her. The emotion in the room softened.

He patted her cheeks dry with his hands.

"How were you close enough to see what happened to us?" Oliver asked him.

"I was following Chandelle home to make sure she returned safely. I always do when she's out past—" He stopped midsentence when Chandelle's fingers twitched. He sucked in a breath and leaned over her, hope transforming his features. "Chandelle? Chandelle, darling…" He touched her hair and rubbed her palm with his other hand. "Chandelle? Wake up, my love, wake up, please, sweet, please…" His pleas were a gentle, begging groan. He brought her hand to his lips to kiss, sudden tears in his eyes. "Chandelle," he begged again. "Come back to me, love. Chandelle, sweet…"

She stirred, her face scrunching up in a wince. "Adam?" her voice was hoarse. She opened her eyes.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

…

" **I** 'm here, love—stay still," Adam soothed.

"Adam." I gazed up into his face. Relief had given him a flushed glow and had brought tears running down his skin. I reached for his face and he moved closer so I could put my hands on his cheeks. He let me touch him, the moment of relief shivering in the air. He looked so overwhelmed by emotion that I felt moved to tears as well, but I had burning questions.

My eyes moved to Oliver and Addy standing on the other side of the bed and I exhaled shakily, so relieved to see them looking relatively well, even though the light of the lamps was paining my eyes. Both wore bandages. When I tried to remember why I was relived…why they were wearing bandages…I felt dizzy and winced. Adam had begun to speak, so I focused on his words and the dizziness cleared slightly.

"You hit your head badly as the carriage fell and you've been unconscious," Adam explained. "Everything is alright. Oliver and Adelaide are here and they're alright. Move slowly. Tell me if any other places hurt."

"Are _you_ alright?" I asked him, my eyes only for his face again. I brushed his hair from his forehead.

"I'm fine." He moved away to wipe his tears on his sleeves, though he kept tight hold of my hand.

"The…the carriage fell?" I repeated. I closed my eyes. The lamplight in the room was too bright, and my head was splitting.

Oliver explained. "The robbers behind us shot William and then the carriage careened off a hill beside a bridge and down onto the road below. I tried to hold you down, but…" He trailed off. "I'm so sorry, Chandelle."

"I don't remember very well," I admitted. "I remember hearing the robbers coming, and the gunshots and…" The rest was a blur. "My head hurts terribly." I reached up and found a poultice on it.

"I'll reapply that," Adam told me. "It's for the pain. It will help numb it." He gently began scraping the moist paste off my head and then scooped more out of a bowl.

"How did we…?" I began. "What happened to the robbers?"

"I killed them," Adam answered in a low voice.

"And everyone's alright? Addy? You have bandages."

"Just scrapes. Oliver has a broken wrist."

"Oh god."

"The doctor said it should heal fine," he put in. "I have to rest it for a month or so. You're the one we're worried about. You keep squinting—is it the pain?"

"And the light. The light hurts."

Oliver went to blow out two of the lamps and the room dimmed considerably.

"Thank you."

"Rest is in order for you," Adam told me firmly. "Bedrest for as long as I deem necessary."

Rest sounded heavenly. I nodded meekly.

"You must really be in pain not to argue with me," he murmured. His eyes tightened with worry. "I'm going to ruin your night's rest by checking every few hours that I can still wake you up. I apologize for that."

I groaned. Oliver leaned in and took up my hand to kiss it gently. "I'll be back tomorrow to see you. I'll bring entertainment for your bestrest boredom."

I smiled wearily. "Goodnight, Oliver. Addy, darling, rest up." Addy leaned in to kiss my cheek.

"Please feel better tomorrow, Chandelle!"

"I'll do my best, sweet."

The two left the room.

There were a few beats of quiet as Adam gazed down at me. Then a sob traveled up from his chest and his head collapsed down onto my stomach as he wept, his arms gentle, yet surrounding me.

"Ah—God in heaven—Chandelle, my only… The world can't be without you. I can't be without you. Don't threaten it…"

I stroked his hair gently.

"If you had been lost to me…" he moaned, "there would be nothing. No happiness, no life, no purpose. You are everything that is good in the world." He suddenly brought his head up to look me deeply in the eyes. "Do you know how much I love you? More than breath, more than any man has ever loved a woman, and you are not allowed to die before I have finished all the loving of you I intend to do."

"Oh no?" I teased, very gently.

"No," he replied, holding me. "There are lifetimes of love to give you. So many years and embraces and…" His voice broke and he seemed unable to bring it back. Instead he feathered kisses on me and sobbed. His body trembled. I soothed him, stroking his head and murmuring.

"I'm here, love, I'm so sorry. Everything is alright. Will you take me to our room?"

He sniffed, collecting himself and wiping himself on his sleeves, nodding. His arms snaked under me very gently, and I put my arm around his neck and closed my eyes, trying to move my head as little as possible. I felt exhausted, dizzy, and vaguely nauseated.

He curled beside me in our bed in the darkness, tucking a blanket over me. True to his word, he woke me every few hours or so to my annoyance. He apologized each time, but kept at it until the sun was almost up and he finally fell too deeply asleep himself to wake. We both slept through the morning into the afternoon.

I changed clothes and relieved myself gingerly when I woke. There was less dizziness, but my head still throbbed with terrible pain. I only allowed poor Oliver and Adelaide half an hour to keep me company before all I wanted was to be lying in the dark and quiet again.

Over the next couple weeks, however, the pain dulled and faded, but it was a full month before I felt fully recovered and well enough to leave the house again and resume my regular life. The classes I had missed meant I would have to retake some courses, which was unfortunate, but I knew things could have ended worse that night. At least I still appeared to be in retention of all my mental faculties without any lasting effects.

To my relief, it turned into a joy to have Oliver and Addy in on the secret of my husband. We discussed together the possibility to bringing Eleanor in on the deceit as well, but though I was tempted, and Eleanor was my closest female friend, I just couldn't allow myself to willing put the secret in another person's hands. What if the sight of Adam frightened Eleanor so badly she told others about him? I had already taken such a risk with the household…I just couldn't take any new risks.

Unbeknownst to me, Papa was waiting until I was fully recovered before he and Jeannine broke the news of their engagement. When I heard, I immediately dove zealously into wedding planning with my young future mother-in-law. I had not been able to have a grand and conventional wedding, but by God, Jeannine would. We had such fun planning together! Jeannine never presumed to assume the sort of place or authority in the family my mother would have had, and I appreciated her humility, gentility, and softness with which she approached everything.

She had a weakness for chocolate and for birds—she liked to watch them in the garden and spoke of their habits and behavior with an endearing passion. Her fortune was not small, but was not near Papa's or of the other women who had made themselves available to him, and her bemused gratitude at being chosen as his wife showed when she looked at him. She would be a gentle and devoted wife.

Wedding planning deeply bored Adam, and he usually found other ways to amuse himself while Jeannine and I put our heads together in the sunny dining room. Often, Papa would take a drink with him in the private back sitting room and they would discuss art prices and matters of state. Once, Oliver dropped by to call on me while Jeannine and Papa were both here, and he took a whiskey with the two men in the back room as well. After that, Oliver sometimes dropped by the house to call on Adam even while I was out. That friendship filled me with delight, though I knew it had its limitations.

"The boy's half in love with you," Adam muttered about him one evening when we were alone in our back garden. "Though I can hardly blame anyone for loving you. You're too easy to fall in love with for your own good, Chandelle."

I waved my hand. "You have nothing to fear on that score. We're not as brother and sister, I suppose, but we've both agreed that we can never be a couple, and he would never take any liberties with me."

"Still. I feel something rise in my gut when I catch him looking at you. Like I want to beat him bloody and then carry you off and lock all the doors around us."

I laughed. "How primal of you."

He smiled a little, then sobered. "When we first became… When we first grew to know each other, I assumed I would share you. I assume you would marry another and I would only have a friendship with you." He gazed at me. "I want you to know that if…if that ever becomes the case…that that is what you want…I'll step aside."

I was frowning. "Yes, women love hearing that their lover would give them up without a fight. Please, continue."

He gave me a look. "It's about what you want. If you want me to fight for you, I will. If you want me to step aside, I will."

"What about what _you_ want?"

"You who have given me so much happiness, I want you to be happy. Enough for twenty lives." He reached across the table and cupped my face in his hand. "My happiness is yours."

My eyes softened. I turned my head slightly to kiss his hand. After a few more minutes of murmured conversation, I took his hand up again and brought it to my mouth. I kissed his fingers gently, then pressed them across my mouth a little more seductively. I nibbled his index finger, then took the tip of it into my mouth.

It was at this point that Adam stood and hauled me into his arms while I laughed. He carried me up to our bedroom.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

…

 **C** laire Melanie Moreau was born to papa and Jeannine in the balmy first week of August the following year.

We all gathered in Lyon together for the event, at our family manor Vue Colline, and Adam and I remained the rest of the summer with them to help with the baby. Papa and Jeannine's intention was to spend some months in London with us in half a year or so when the babe was old enough to travel.

I would soon finish much of what London had to offer me in terms of education, and Adam and I were looking into purchasing an apartment in Paris where I might pursue other studies. I had grown terribly attached to our London home, but at least during the autumn I wanted to be in Paris studying history, politics, and science. It was only three days of good road from Paris to my father's family manor in Lyon, and my father's manor had fields, forest, and hills to roam about in that Adam and I both loved.

Rather unfortunately often, little Claire squalled like mad and exhausted Jeannine with her constant needs, but there were also times of giggles and sweetness. I learned quickly in order to help her and the nurses with her. While in Lyon, Adam had to conceal himself the majority of the time to avoid the manor's numerous staff and both Jeannine and my father's other family, but when our family was left alone in my papa's private sitting room, he would slip in to be with us and eye me holding Claire with a twinge of anxiety in his expression.

I knew what he was concerned about, but his fears were relatively groundless. Perhaps I was a selfish or unnatural woman, but even while I held, cooed to, and bathed little Claire in love, my abandonment of motherhood did not seem to me an unacceptable sacrifice. I had not had a proper mother and doubted whether or not I would have made a proper one myself. Adam, my studies, and the pleasures of life and enjoying motherhood second-hand were enough.

"Stop worrying," I murmured to him in the evening when he snuck into my bedroom in the eastern wing of Vue Colline. I had already been helped out of my day dress and I wore only a light nightgown.

"About what?"

"About me being upset I don't have children. I'm not. But I want to be able to enjoy playing with Claire without you looking like I'm driving a nail through your skin."

He grimaced as he got into bed beside me and I cuddled against him. "That's exaggeration."

"My point stands. Stop worrying, love." I put an arm around him and held him tightly. "You fell in with a different sort of woman. All for the better, I should think."

I felt him chuckle a little. His wide hand stroked my hair. "Definitely for the better," he agreed.

"I'm able to mother vicariously through Sophia, Jeannine, soon Eleanor, and at some point likely Oliver as well. If he ever decides he's done wooing half of London. Then I will have _too_ many children to mother."

"Don't be so hard on Oliver," Adam chuckled. "He's not so _energetic_ as all that."

"You would know better than me—he talks to you more about such things."

Adam and Oliver had grown to be good friends, and behind myself, he and his sister were Adam's favorite two people to talk to. Oliver was witty, saw through to the heart of things, and he also had a fondness for all things unconventional, and in that way, he could be no better friend to us. I knew Adam also enjoyed his endless stories about women, which Oliver did not often share in front of me unless they were appropriate for polite conversation. He was still unmarried, but there was a sense in the air that it was possible he might settle in with someone soon—a pliant type who would worship his quickness.

"Are you tired, darling?" I asked him, nosing my lips toward his. He smiled against my mouth.

"No, sweet." His palm brushed my breasts through my nightgown as he spoke the rumbled words.

"Oh, good." I fisted his short black hair in one hand while my other curled around the back of his neck.

His hands knew me obscenely well, and his bashful first touches had turned into easy confidence and a proclivity for sexual innovation. It had been more than a full year since I had married him, and still I craved his touch.

He trailed fingertips over and around my thighs, kissed my wrists and ears, and teased my breasts until they ached before finally pulling the nightgown over my head. His tongue swirled around one nipple and then the other as my toes curled and my back arched. Then his hands wove into my hair, massaging. His palms rubbed hard over all of my skin from neck to knees, leaving tingling heat and relaxation in their wake.

I trusted him entirely. I let him lift me and hold me and make me helpless with pleasure. I could let myself go in every way.

His fingers gently teased my entrance, and while that touch was gentle, his touches and kisses hardened and deepened. I made a sighing groan of passion as he nipped my shoulder just a little and I caressed his earlobe with my teeth. I speared my tongue deep into his mouth and we kissed with a back and forth flow that had me rocking in time with its rhythm.

He shoved the thick flat of his inner arm between my legs and I whimpered, sliding myself up and down it, grinding my body against the hard pressure.

"Adam, darling…love…"

"Chandelle, yes…"

My hand found his hardness and I caressed the bulge in the soft trousers. He groaned deeply, kissing me languidly while his hand between my leg stilled for a moment so he could focus on how good my touch felt. I sucked on the skin of his neck and shoulder while his fingers flicked and rubbed and built a rhythm I wanted badly. Too soon, he stopped.

"Shall I get out those new toys we bought in Paris again?" he breathed. I nodded, making a hungry and excited little moan. He was gone for just a moment while he opened a box under the bed. "Leather or ivory?"

"Ivory. Oiling the leather one would take too long…"

When he came back he hauled me into his arms, one arm under my back, and touched the tip of the ivory Italian _diletto_ to my thigh. I bit my lip, whimpering for more. He ate my noises with a deep kiss and circled my wet entrance with the tip of the toy a few moments before dipping it inside me gently. I arched my back and groaned, my body rocking to take in a few more inches of the pressure I wanted—needed.

" _Oh—ungh—God_ —" I gasped as he gently rocked and dipped the toy with one hand and his fingers played a sweet spot just above it like a stringed instrument only he could make sing. My body rocked without my conscious command and a layer below my skin swelled and throbbed, crying for more. It always took time, but he was always so flawlessly patient as I lost track of my place in space and just let his loving take me where it would. Pleasure sounds moaned from my throat in repetitive little waves.

He was an artist with my body. Together we had found that in bed we could be whatever we wanted. We could let go, we could take and give power, we could try on different personalities, we could follow instinct. Adam had caused me to make noises I did not know I was capable of making and to wield power I did think myself devious enough to wield. He was mine and I was his. His purpose, my shelter, his muse, my satiation.

Release came to me with a shivering burst and I forgot to breathe as it rolled through my body to my toes and fingertips. Adam leaned down to drink my gasps, claiming my mouth, claiming all of me. I wrapped myself around him, kissing and kissing him, letting my nails gently rake down his back and chest toward where he strained against his laces.

Adam closed his eyes as my fingers loosened the laces of his trousers with delicious deliberate movements. When I slipped my hand beneath the waist of his shorts and caressed him he was hard as stone, the skin like hot velvet.

"Uhhng…" he groaned from deep in his throat, still and shivering slightly with pleasure. I loved these moments sometimes even more than my own fulfilment—the moments he was helpless with the pleasure I could give him. I traced my tongue across the bottom lip of his unresponsive mouth, rubbing the flat of my palm over him, stroking him.

With a sharp growl, he came back to me again, crushing me to him, his tongue deep in my mouth. We rolled across the bed, fighting for leverage so we could press ever tighter and hold ever harder. I raked my nails down his chest and down over his inner thighs like I knew he liked. I sucked on the skin of his shoulder hungrily. Grinning, I shoved his weight down onto the mattress and slid like an eel backwards straddling his calves and tugging his trousers down out of my way. His inner thighs trembled with anticipation. There had been quite enough teasing and waiting. Without preamble, I wrapped both hands around his manhood and took the upper third of it into my warm mouth.

We had given each other our mouths before, and each time the sensation had made my husband helpless with pleasure. He lay limp across the mattress, his arms spread as if he were on a cross, making moaning sounds that made me lightheaded with lust.

When he came I caught his seed with a towel and wiped us both off before snuggling curled beside him. He always needed a minute or two to return to earth after reaching release.

After a few minutes, he turned with a groan to encase me in his arms and murmur words of love and devotion, his wide hand running up and down my bare side comfortingly.

"Sometimes I feel like falling to the floor and weeping when I think of how happy I am as your husband," he whispered tenderly. "When I remember my life before and how I thought that life would end… When I remember everything you've seen… When I play cards with your father, hold your little step-sister, see this family around me… _my_ family…I feel afraid to die, because no life could other life could be sweeter than this one. And it makes me afraid…it is more to lose than I've ever had before."

"You will never lose me." I buried myself against him. "I refuse to be parted from you."

He stroked my hair. "Everything else I could lose, if I still had you with me. Brilliant, beautiful, stubborn woman." His kissed me gently on the head with each word. I smiled, then grew more serious.

"Adam, don't fall asleep just yet."

"What is it, love?"

"I received a letter today that Ida forwarded to us from the townhouse. From my Uncle Alphonse."

Adam's body grew stiffer. "What contents?"

"He inquired after my health and wellness. Nothing confrontational. It more resembled the offering of a small olive branch. But…I haven't written back yet, and I don't know if I should." I looked up at him. "I should like him to know I'm well, but to open that channel of communication again… I worry secrets could be drawn out. Papa, Jeannine, Oliver—none of them know that you have killed innocent people. They don't understand…the extent of things."

Adam rubbed his mouth with his hand.

"I'm afraid it could change everything," I continued anxiously. "But to cut off contact cuts me forever from people I love and grew up with… Elizabeth…Ernest…and my uncle. I have always loved him like another father…" I sighed. "And what's more, Papa is fond of Alphonse. It's possible that even if I send no reply, he will contact Papa."

Adam was quiet for just a moment, then said, "I have been thinking for a while now that it would be best if as much of the truth came out from us as possible. Your father deserves to know—"

"But how much?" I turned in his arms to gaze fully at him. "Of your true origin? How could we… How could he accept such a thing…? How could he even accept William's murder?"

"I don't know."

"Perhaps…we could ask Alphonse—the entire family—to keep the reality of your creation private."

"Secrets like that burn like coals in people, Chandelle," he replied in a low voice. "It's such a huge secret." His face was drawn.

"But that much harder to believe. Think—Victor doesn't want any more people to know about his corruption, and none of them would want to tell others of it, either."

"Victor may want credit for his accomplishment."

Anger frothed inside me. "He wouldn't dare."

"I don't know where things stand with the family anymore," Adam murmured. "I have not been to Geneva since that night. I don't know how they speak of me. But Victor and Elizabeth married, despite all this."

That disbelief returned afresh to my mind. "I can't believe she still married him. After what she learned."

"I have murdered innocent people, and still you married me," he murmured very gently. "Love does not follow rational rules. You've seen him with her. He loves her deeply. He's always loved her. He is a different man with her."

I could not imagine loving Victor. But then, Elizabeth likely could not possibly imagine loving Adam. And I loved him more than there were words.

"I will write back to Uncle," I told him slowly, thinking about my words, "and we will sit Papa…and I suppose Jeannine…down tomorrow and tell him the truth of your revenge on Victor." My voice faltered slightly. If Papa and Jeannine could not accept Adam's past, our current peace and happiness would be rent in two. But I felt that Adam's and my own instincts were in the right—Papa deserved to know the truth. "It will explain to Papa why the Frankensteins hate you. But we will explain nothing more. I think their family will wish to bury the ungodly business of Victor's work. I will not expose you to that extent."

"Chandelle…he and Jeannine could refuse to see me anymore. You've been so happy, all of us together… I don't want that ruined." Pain laced his voice.

I held him tightly. "Don't blame yourself."

"No one else is at fault."

"Victor."

"He did not make me strangle that child."

"You said yourself: my father deserves the truth of things. I think that is true. Even if it destroys our little family pastoral…it's necessary. Isn't it?"

He nodded slowly. "It seems…right, but not best. Does that make sense?"

"Yes. Nothing about this was every going to be easy and I knew that when I married you. I still want you. Hold me tightly?"

"Always." He tightened his embrace and there was safety there, but still, it was a while before either of us could fall asleep.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

…

 **B** aby Claire had just been put down for the night, and Jeannine was treating us to some soothing melodies on the pianoforte while Papa rested with his legs up on a couch in our music room.

I watched Jeannine's hands on the keys, remembering mornings when I too played that same piano in this room under the watchful eye of my strict tutor. Every hall of Vue Colline held memories of childhood for me. It was home, and I knew all its secrets.

The servants would be heading to bed soon themselves and soon Adam would be able to find his way safely here and lock the door to the hall and this room so we could all be together in privacy. We had retired like this the same way often throughout this month we had all been at the manor together.

Soon enough, he slipped inside like a ghost, locking the door behind him. The three of us smiled, seeing him.

"Did you get enough dinner?" Papa asked him. He regretted the odd situation of Adam having to sneak about, and was always concerned about whether or not he was getting enough to eat.

"I'm fine." Adam came to where I sat and sat himself beside me, kissing me on the brow. He looked to Jeannine. "Madame, you play so beautifully."

"No, indeed," Jeannine replied humbly. "Not faithfully. I slur my way through the difficult passages. But I do enjoy it. Is Claire still asleep? She was put down a couple hours ago and last night she woke again around this time."

"Still quiet as a lamb," he replied. "She'll be sleeping through the night soon."

"Not likely. She's a fretful babe! My sister's first girl was much quieter." She looked mock-accusingly at Papa. "Perhaps because she is half _your_ baby."

"Oho." Papa was grinning at her gentle cheek. He got up to bother her with kisses on the back of her neck as she was trying to play.

"Oh now Daniel _really_!" She was turning pink.

I giggled and Adam played with my fingers in his.

"Adam," Jeannine said, stopping her playing and turning on the bench toward him. "Were you the one who fixed the bassinet?"

Adam nodded. "Yes. Was it done well enough?"

"Of course it was! I knew it was you. Thank you."

"It was no problem."

"The secrecy must be so difficult for you… I told Daniel we'd be fine somewhere small where you wouldn't have to hide from the staff at the very least, but he won't budge. The minute Claire is old enough, we'll join you and Chandelle in London for a few months at Albeney where everything can be normal. Though sometimes I don't pity you—I should like to hide from my mother too once in a while."

Daniel snorted with laughter.

"You take too much upon yourself, madame," Adam replied with a smile. "I prefer things this way."

She didn't look completely convinced and it warmed my heart. Her concern for him was very sweet. I brought Adam's hand to my mouth to kiss it.

"Shall we play cards?" Papa asked the room. "Or we could keep reading that novel you were reading to us the other day, Chandelle—?"

"Not tonight, Papa," I replied. "Adam and I need to speak with you both tonight."

Papa's face grew serious immediately. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Come sit."

He came and sat across from us. Jeannine sat herself beside him.

I began, "I got a letter yesterday from Uncle Alphonse." Papa's eyes locked on mine, then he glanced at Adam.

"And?"

"There was nothing of import in it—just inquiry into how I am. But it is the first to come since Adam and I left his home under less than ideal circumstances. It seems like perhaps he wants to open contact again, and if that is the case…" I looked to Adam. "Adam and I felt it was time you knew the details of the history between him and Alphonse's family."

Papa looked satisfied. "I've been wanting to know the details since you came home from Geneva."

"I know." I glanced at his wife. "Do I need to tell Jeannine—?"

"She knows everything you both have told me thus far."

I nodded, then with a glance at Adam, I told them, "Adam still does not feel comfortable sharing with anyone the details of what was done by Victor to him. Much of it is difficult to understand or believe. But Victor Frankenstein gave Adam his scars. He is the reason he looks the way he does. Victor used Adam…to answer certain scientific questions and aspirations he had, and when he was finished…and he saw what he had created in him…he cursed him, and threw him out into the wilderness to starve and die."

Jeannine's hands were at her mouth. "My god."

Papa looked grim but unsurprised.

I continued, "But what had been done to him had made Adam very strong of body, and he survived. He tried to approach people for help and shelter, but—as you can imagine—they screamed, called him a monster, and in a few cases, shot him. He tried everything… He befriended a blind man hoping this was the solution, but the man's family caught sight of him and violently threw him from their home. Again and again he was met only with rejection" —I gazed up at Adam as he watched me tell his story— "and he became filled with bitterness and hate, especially for Victor, who had done this to him. The things he did in revenge against Victor…they are so terrible and…evil. We didn't tell you of them because we knew it would be hard for you…perhaps impossible…for you to accept them." I glanced at Jeanine. "I was afraid you might hate Adam, and never let yourself know him as the man he is now. But…even though you know him, we understand still understand if after we tell you what he did to Victor's family, you feel differently about him…and perhaps…do not want to see him anymore."

Papa's face was a deep grimace and to my surprise, he spoke up in a low voice. "I think I am seeing now where this story leads." His eyes moved to Adam stonily. "You are the one who killed William, aren't you? As well as that other man."

Adam nodded once, eyes somewhat sunken into their sockets. Jeannine sucked in a breath.

"It felt as if there was nothing left for me in this life but revenge," Adam murmured in a low voice. "I wanted to make Victor suffer as I had suffered."

Jeannine said nothing; she kept one hand over her mouth and the other gripped the wooden sofa arm.

"My next victim was to be your daughter," Adam continued.

Papa stared at him.

"When Chandelle arrived at their manor," he explained, "Victor's mind was slipping. He swam in and out of madness brought on by grief and guilt. He was bedridden, but when Chandelle went up alone to his room to see him, the combination of his fever and his barely recognizing her led him to answer her questioning truthfully, as he had no one else's. He told her about me—about what he had done—about who I was.

"So when I cornered her one night to strangle her in my next step of revenge against her cousin, she knew me. She was afraid, but she spoke to me as if I were a man, not a demon. She was brave…and compassionate…and I fell so deeply in love with her it brought me to my knees."

I squeezed his hand very tightly in both of mine, the memories of that time fresh in my mind. I brought his wide hand to my lips to kiss it hard. A tear slipped out and slid down one of my cheeks and I brushed it away, glancing at my father and his wife. Their expressions were a bit softer than they had been.

"From that moment, all my plans for revenge evaporated," said Adam. "I would protect Victor and his family now because they were important to this woman. I would be whatever she wanted me to be. Friend, solider, lover, mere acquaintance, it didn't matter. As long as she spoke to me as if I were not the monster I looked like…or perhaps am."

I took up the thread of the story then and told them, "I exposed Victor's sins to his family…and I love and cherish the man who murdered Alphonse's youngest son. For these understandable reasons, they hate both of us."

"Yes," Papa murmured. "It makes sense that they would."

Jeannine had turned away to wipe tears from her cheeks. Papa fished out his handkerchief and handed it to her silently. He rubbed her back as she wiped her eyes, his dark eyes on Adam. I felt a great dread in my stomach. I had married a murderer and now my father knew so.

Adam and I both began speaking at the same time.

"Papa, he is still the same man you know—"

"Chandelle loves you deeply, and the last thing I want is for this understanding to harm your relationship. I would give anything to be able to take back these sins committed when I was a different man…"

Papa held up a hand. His eyes moved to Adam. After a tense moment, he said, "Adam, I understand why these things were not disclosed to us earlier. It is…a terrible thing to swallow. Terrible crimes." He paused, his mouth working. "I will tell you my feelings. I am perhaps not a very Christian man…because these revelations have not radically changed my opinion of you. I can't imagine what you suffered at Victor's hand, but I think it is likely that if any man had suffered the same, they would have acted with similar lack of mercy. That does not forgive it, but it does cast it in a different light.

"And what is more, I have seen the man you are now. I've seen you with Chandelle—how you take care of her, preempt her needs, make her happier than I have ever since her in her life. Soldiers kill enemies in the heat of battle and are not condemned for it when they return. Children can be killed in the crossfire of warring men and yet these men are not seen as evil. I believe I will choose to see your actions in this way—in the way of war."

"Such a response is kinder than I deserve," Adam replied, emotion thick in his voice. I watched his face, holding his arm tightly to comfort him.

"I believe my wife will…need some time. Jeannine, dear?" he asked softly.

She met his eyes, nodding slowly. "I…it's been very shocking. I…"

Papa glanced at me. "Is that the whole of it?"

"Yes, Papa."

"I'm going to take Jeannine up to bed now, Chandelle. We'll talk more in the morning."

"Yes, Papa."

They left and Adam stood to lock the door again after them. When he returned to the sofa, he wrapped me up in his arms in his lap. I held him tightly, my arms around his neck and my head on his shoulder.

"Your father—he was very understanding," Adam murmured.

"He and Alphonse were both better able to deal with the realities of your past than I feared. French gentlemen, eh? Made of sturdy stuff." I joked to lighten the heavy mood a little. He stroked my hair gently.

"You take after him."

"I flatter myself, I do."

"Poor Jeannine…"

I sighed. "Yes. But she didn't know of William at all. She doesn't know any of my mother's family. That will help."

"She is so gentle-natured."

"She and Papa have both grown to love you, if I am any judge. With love, forgiveness comes more easily. Papa seems content. I think it will be alright, love, I do." I hugged myself to him. "Talking about that beginning and those memories made me remember… Do you remember that first night?"

"It was the first night of my life," he murmured. "I remember every inch of it. Every moment." Pain had entered his voice and his hand stroked my head. "I frightened you so."

"Yes…I do believe I fainted. I had never fainted before."

He chuckled. "You said you wished Victor had not been so blind. And you refused to look at me with disgust before I ended your life. You were so brave, sweet. So fierce and kind."

He kissed me softly.


	28. Chapter 28

_Author's note:_

Hello lovely people. I'm so sorry it took this long to get this final chapter to you. I thought I would be able to finish this before I had to move my life to a new city, but I just didn't quite make it. This chapter was also oddly difficult for me to write. Usually endings are a simple matter for me, but this one I rewrote a few times. There are so many different emotions of so many different people to juggle… I'm still not sure if I'm entirely happy with it, but I didn't want to deprive you of closure any longer. So here it is. Thank you for all your reviews and support. Much love,

L&P

…

Chapter 28

 _Five years later._

 **T** he hazy grey of dawn was fading slowly into a less forbidding clearness. Mist clung to the dips and pits in the fields and roads. The weather was fair, but a bit stickier than it had been in Paris. The air smelled different here—fresher, with more pine, as if it came down straight off the snow-capped mountains.

Stones crunched under the slowing wheels of Papa's carriage and hedges lined the long, narrow drive. Tall elms and oaks loomed behind them, casting the space into twilight.

Finally the carriage pulled up alongside the front and gave us the prospect of the manor. A silver plaque on the gate read _Frankenstein_.

My husband's mouth had been set into a hard shape, his eyes faraway, for the later part of our journey. I looked to him but he was already ducking out the carriage to come around and help me out on the other side. Papa followed him. When he opened the door for me and took my hand to lead me out, I gazed hard at his impassive face, but I could not tell what he was feeling.

Papa helped Jeannine out of the carriage after I climbed out, but we left our suitcases where they were.

We came upon no gardenhands or servants as we went through the handsome wire gate and approached the manor. I thought it very likely that my uncle had dismissed them for the evening, to avoid strange rumors circulating in town about his family and its visitors. Adam was dressed well; he wore his cloak, and the shock of his scarring was disguised somewhat by the makeup he was obliged to wear when moving in public, in carriages and inns, but he was nonetheless an unsettling sight that would be best left unseen by household help.

Papa and I shared glances often. He and I led our small party, with Adam and Jeannine following. There was no patio in the front, only double doors complimented left and right by long rows of tall, darkened windows.

Before Papa could ring, the door was opened to us.

My uncle Alphonse looked a great deal older than I had seen him last, but then I knew I must as well. He looked like an old man in truth now.

"Daniel," he greeted. He was making an effort not to stare at Adam behind the two of us and instead look his former brother-in-law in the eyes.

Papa held out a hand and the two shook and pressed their cheeks to one another's.

"It has been a long time," Papa said gently.

"Come in. Let's not greet in the doorway."

I expected others to be waiting in the entry hall, but the hall was deserted, though well-lit. Papa turned and held out his arm for Jeannine to come closer. "May I introduce to you my wife, Jeannine Moreau."

Alphonse kissed her in welcome. "A pleasure, madame."

Jeannine nodded in response, murmuring, "For me as well." She looked apprehensive, but not timid. Motherhood and society had slowly given Jeannine a stiffer backbone and better poise than she had had when she first had married my father.

Adam stood beside me, moving only when necessary. I could feel the tenseness of his body. I reminded myself again that my uncle had invited us here, and that he had included Adam in that invitation.

Alphonse glanced at my husband often, unable to help it. But he took my hand and kissed my cheeks in greeting easily enough.

"Chandelle… It's good to see you again. You look well."

I was wearing the more conservative clothing of a married woman, and his eyes did not miss it, though I knew he had already years ago likely connected the differing surname with which I signed my letters to Adam's, and what that implied.

"Thank you, Uncle. I have…I've missed you."

"Yes." He gazed at me. "Yes, I've missed you, too."

Alphonse finally addressed Adam. He did not move toward him or raise a hand, but his voice was not angry when he greeted stiffly, "Monsieur Bordelon."

"Monsieur Frankenstein," Adam responded quietly. "I was…surprised by your invitation."

"Yes… Well, my sons… It seems that some closure is desired by all. Is it not so?"

Adam glanced at me. "I know that Chandelle was gladdened to receive it. She has missed being a part of your family."

"Well." Uncle took my arm and we began walking through the manor. "Elizabeth has been asking for you every half an hour since dawn. Let's go and see her." He glanced at me with just a hint of apology on his face. "Her boys are staying with friends elsewhere today."

 _For their safety_ , were his unspoken words. I was disappointed I would not be able to meet Elizabeth's sons, but I would not begrudge Victor and Elizabeth their caution.

"You have been swamped by boys, and us by girls, Uncle," I joked gently as we crossed slowly toward the doors to the side gardens. "My sisters Claire and Larue, and then one of my friends recently married and his wife delivered a girl only—what—three months ago now? Although, I think he's in for a boy, next. He has it coming to him."

As I spoke, we stepped through the open doors out onto the garden patio, and it was a good thing I had ended my sentence, else I would have trailed off.

They stood when we came out. Victor, Elizabeth, and Ernest.

Victor was a healthier weight, and moved with a leisure and ease he had not had when last I had set my eyes on him. I remembered him as a gaunt, haunted scarecrow, ready to bolt or to howl at provocation. He looked now like a comfortable member of the French gentry. A professor, perhaps. A father. He was much older and appeared calmer.

Elizabeth had not quite kept her figure after two children, but her face, though older now, was as lovely and guileless as ever. The sun gave her pale hair a heavenly shine. Tears had sprung into her skyblue eyes at the sight of me. She had not changed much. But Earnest I barely recognized.

He had still been a youth when last I had been in Geneva. He was now a man. Like his brother Victor, he still had little need of spectacles, and he was perhaps even handsomer than Victor had been at his age. There was a stiffness to his body that comes when one tries to hide discomfort with formality. He was well-dressed, and there was something about his hands that was more sure and graceful than before, when he had been young. I knew he had not gone into service, but still he looked like a solider. He held his back very straight.

Papa greeted everyone first to smooth over the shock and awkwardness of the reunion. Jeannine followed in his wake, smiling sweetly in her soft way, and warming the tense atmosphere. The patio was a lovely space—old cobblestones smooth underfoot, sound wood and wicker furniture, gardens in early bloom surrounding, and the sun, though pale yet in its morning angle, looked as if it might grow full and buttery in a few hours.

Papa's greetings to Elizabeth and Ernest were warm, but he greeted Victor with a cold resentment that was just a notch above open hostility. When Papa had learned that it would not only be Alphonse we would be visiting, but that Victor would be there as well, it had taken a week for Adam and I to convince him to still accept the invitation.

I barely paid attention to what was spoken. I held back with my husband, watching the quick but frequent glances he was receiving. After an initial size-up, Adam attempted to avoid the gazes of Victor and Ernest, but his gaze kept being dragged to the face of his creator as if by an undeniable force. Adam's face was tight, but did not show pain. I too glanced up at him often to make certain he was alright.

When I went to greet my cousins, he held back, and Papa and Jeannine went to his side. Jeannine patted his arm gently and he gave her a heartfelt glance of gratitude. Victor, Elizabeth, and Ernest watched the exchange avidly. Their eyes missed very little that Adam did.

My greeting to Ernest was the most uncomfortable of my greetings; he and I had parted under hostile circumstances and had not corresponded since. I was fortified to see sadness in his eyes instead of hate.

"Let us sit down," Uncle murmured. We sat; all except Elizabeth, who excused herself to go fetch tea and refreshments for us.

I sat beside my love and placed his large left hand in my lap, my hands cupped around his. I looked up at him and he met my eyes reassuringly.

We spoke of pleasantries, of the seasons, of births and changes. Politics, science, and the wars of Europe. How business was for my father. How the mother I no longer knew was getting on. Elizabeth's two boys, and Jeannine and Papa's two older girls.

Adam was silent unless Papa, Jeannine, or I asked him a direct question, and even then, his voice was low and smooth, though the room stopped dead to listen to it. No Frankenstein addressed him, though they all watched him as if he were a tiger sleeping in their midst. Gratifyingly, however, they seemed to struggle to try and move beyond it. Elizabeth even tried to smile at him once or twice. Victor and Ernest did not glare at him; their expressions were carefully smooth and taut.

My father made a point of mentioning things that spoke to Adam's security and esteemed place in our lives: he was his son-in-law and brother to his two small daughters, and if Adam featured in any family stories he told, he was charming and gentle in them. Papa's protective championing made Adam's place in our family evident, and I also hoped the mentions would continue to tame Adam's fierce and frightening appearance in their eyes. I knew he looked less fearsome than he had when Victor, Alphonse, and Ernest had seen him last, and the venue had been well-chosen—the pleasantness of the gardens and the breeze and sunlight were soothing. There could be no monsters in such a place.

It was a remarkably normal scene to me, as the memories of our last encounter with this family another had been burned so vividly on my memory, but…many years had passed. Minds turn over and cool in such time. I felt as if we were all authors of our lives looking back on the past and realizing we had not known enough. Wishing to write it all again.

The specter of guilt slowly returned to Victor's countenance, dark and heavy, and it deepened the lines on his face and seemed to resurrect something of the damaged man he had been in those days and nights years ago. They did not often meet gazes, but when Adam's eyes were elsewhere, Victor's were on him, watching him with pain evident in his eyes and in the angles of his body. When my and my father's eyes were on Victor they were hard and cold, and those looks Victor accepted as a guilty man accepts the whip.

The morning grew into afternoon, and Elizabeth served trays of food and drink so we were never hungry despite the lack of a formal meal. There were no staff in the manor to serve one.

When pleasantries finally were exhausted, Alphonse finally made an effort to address Adam directly.

"As I believe I mentioned in my latest letter," he said, "I think the painting you sent us, Adam, is an incredible piece. The subjects of it are not so young anymore, and so I daresay it flatters us. It brings out the similarities in our features in a way other portraits never have."

He was alluding to the portrait of himself, Victor, and Ernest that Adam had done many years ago and which had been collecting dust in his studio until it seemed it would be better served sent to Geneva.

"It is an early piece," Adam replied slowly, "but I'm pleased to hear it was appreciated."

Elizabeth glanced at her husband, and then ventured, "When Daniel mentioned in a letter that you had become rather well known in certain circles, we, well, we were curious, and took a trip to see one of your galleries in Florence. They were very lovely. Some of them were very strange and sad, but others were…well, they were like a painted song, I believe were my words." She glanced at her silent husband again as if he might corroborate. He said nothing. She looked back to Adam. "You're very talented. I almost fainted at the prices of two of the pieces." She ventured a smile at her small joke.

Adam returned a brief smile in acknowledgement of her kindness. "You flatter me, madame. I am no student of art, and my pieces could have just as easily been laughed out of Paris as commanded such prices."

"Greco and Vermeer were laughed at and passed over in their time," she replied gently. "Paris has sometimes laughed even at great artists."

"Ah, you make me feel woefully uneducated. This is why I avoid my own galleries."

Elizabeth smiled at his self-deprecation. "Are you…getting enough to eat?" she inquired hesitantly.

"I am indeed, and very grateful for your kind hospitality."

"I…" Her voice faltered for a moment. She held her fingers anxiously and looked to Victor again, but he seemed unable to put forth words of his own. She soldiered on: "It is a difficult situation for everyone…there is so much terrible… But…I know Victor has been… Well, there is so much regret—on-on both sides. But it…it's important—for us—to see you like this. To—to see all of you and know that there has been healing after the pain for you—as there has been for us."

Adam's voice was even lower when he replied, but it was clear. "My own remorse for my actions is bottomless, and I never expected to be invited back into this house. Even so, I feel I still have to right to be here. But Chandelle…and Daniel and Jeannine—they have done nothing but bestow kindness, even where it was not deserved, and I am grateful your two families will not be estranged anymore because of me. And I am as equally glad to see you happy, and to know, as you put it, that there has been healing."

"Nothing can forgive what was done—on either side," Alphonse put in carefully. "But time and a study of your letters and—and my son's laboratory journals—impressed upon all of us slowly an understanding of a balance of the scale of evil done here between you and—our family. And Daniel and Chandelle's letters and descriptions of the life you've been able to live with them made it clear to us that your character was…misjudged."

Adam seemed to have no reply. I squeezed his hand. I said in his stead, "Adam and I don't entertain the notion that our two families will be ever be close, but that you understand and have thought about his life and listen to him now—it means a great deal."

A lull came when no one spoke. I looked at my father, wondering what more could be said.

Victor shifted, and drew everyone's eyes. He opened his mouth finally and spoke, addressing the man he had created.

"And so you are…you are happy, then."

Adam gazed at the man whose hands had given him life and weighed his reply. The breeze ruffled his dark hair. Finally he simply answered, "Yes." He shifted his weight slightly. "It is more than I deserve, but I will not give it up."

Victor shuddered slightly as Adam spoke, but he did not rebuke him or send him any hateful glances.

"We have our own life in Paris and Lyon," Adam continued. "Do not trouble yourself with the concern that we will in any way infringe upon yours. I think it best that you and I…that we be separated by a healthy distance. We…bring out the worst in one another." He paused a moment, then continued, "The moment one of your family extended me sympathy, I was no longer your enemy. This is difficult to understand, I know, but I hope after today you come away truly certain that your family is safe…and that there is no more enmity between us. At least, not from me."

There was again quiet for a few moments. Then Victor replied slowly, "I believe… I do believe that to be the case."

Adam nodded in acknowledgement.

There was a weighty quiet until rather unexpectedly the breeze snatched a napkin from one of the tables and tossed it square into my father's chest. He huffed in amusement. The tenseness sieved away as we all worked to place cups or plate on anything that might fall prey to the unpredictable spring breeze. To make her laugh, Adam put a cup and saucer on Jeannine's head as if she might fly away. Elizabeth cracked a smile at that, too.

Nothing particularly memorable was spoken of after, but shoulders now lighter from the lessening of long-held weights warmed in the sun. We took our leave in the very late afternoon, claiming dinner plans. No cheeks brushed Adam's, and no Frankenstein touched him in farewell, but in every eye, old fury had cooled to the touch. Elizabeth and I would spend a few weeks in the south together in the autumn. Alphonse would visit my father in Lyon on his next trip to France to see my mother.

When we were all back in the gently swaying carriage and leaving the Frankenstein manor behind along a wide dirt road, all four of us could finally fully relax again. I pressed myself against Adam's side and he pulled me tight to him with one arm. His eyes were still far away and stone-like, gazing out the carriage window. I gazed up at him, wondering what kinds of thoughts were swirling through his mind. I longed to comfort him with my touch and to soften the lines of his face with gentle kisses, but now could not be the time.

I reached up to cup his cheek, and he met my worrying gaze. "Love?" I asked him softly. "How do you feel?"

He took my hand at his cheek and moved it to his mouth so he could kiss the backs of my fingers. His gaze was thoughtful, but a lightness was in his eyes. He caressed my chin gently. " _Mon cher_ ," he murmured, "everything has come back around to its beginning, and the uncertain earth has settled." He gazed back out the window. "Victor Frankenstein and I will likely never set eyes on one another again, but that is how it should be. His family believes that the scale of good and evil done between us is settled… An unexpected and merciful blessing." His eyes returned to me and he pulled me close. He took my hand, placed it gently in the center of his chest over his heart, and exhaled slowly. His next words were heavy. "Chandelle, my darling…I feel…at peace."

My arms slipped upwards to clasp around his neck and he settled me easily in his lap so I could hold myself tighter to him. I buried my face against his warm skin and closed my eyes. I knew papa and Jeannine were looking on, but they were long used to our effusiveness.

"And when we get home to Lyon," he murmured in a contented rumble, his voice at the edge of breaking with emotion, "your dear sisters will fight over who gets to sit on my lap and read to me. Oliver and your father and I will play poker until we've had too much to drink and then we'll laugh until we have to wipe away tears. You and I will be together. And the past will let our joy free of its teeth. The shadow that has been hanging over us of all that came before…it has gone…and washed us clean."

I could hear the tears in his voice. I felt Jeannine's arm around me and saw my papa's hand on Adam's shoulder. With his warm neck against my cheek I could smell pine and wool and all the fear and doubt and joy and passion that had come before. I could smell the parlor room where he had dropped to his knees before me in silver moonlight. I smelled the dawn mornings reading to one another, the dusty linens of the farmhouse, the city smoke in his hair the night he had returned and vowed his love. I could smell all of our nights of pleasure, our arguments and laughter and soft moments. I could smell his unassailable strength, and his soothing voice…its depth and gravity…the voice of a man whose innocence was eviscerated by cruelty and who loves all the more fiercely because of it.

"Don't cry, sweet girl," he whispered thickly.

"For joy, my love," I whispered in return. I kissed his scarred skin and repeated tenderly, "For joy."

…

 _la fin_


End file.
